Ivy Tree
by BlindingFirefly
Summary: Bella made a promise to Edward that she would stay safe. But how could she protect herself from the pain his leaving brought her? There was only way; Bella took it, and it's landed her in an asylum. Can someone so broken ever be fixed again? AU ExB
1. Preface

Disclaimer: If I owned the Twilight-verse, I could consider myself my own little goddess with more money than God. But I don't and I don't, so logically, I must not own any of it. Duh.

A/N: Welcome to _Ivy Tree_! I'm so glad to be able to start posting this! As I've said on some other places, this is the story that's basically the result of every epiphany and brilliant thought my sister, hopeisabluebird, and I have ever had about _Twilight_. We have put a ton of love and time into this story—literally. I think all Bluebird's boyfriend heard about for about three months was _Ivy Tree_. I guess it's lucky, then, that I don't have a boyfriend!  Yet. Note my supreme confidence!

But I digress.

I will be updating this story twice a week, most likely on Tuesday/Wednesdays and Friday/Saturdays. Sixteen chapters of it are already written, so hopefully I can keep ahead of you greedy little readers! If I miss one posting, I apologize, but I am a college student, which means two things: I eat far too much boxed macaroni and cheese and my time really isn't my own.

Please, by all that is holy, understand that I am far more likely to update if I'm getting reviews. I love being put on alerts and favorites and stuff, but reviews are like…like…a juicy little human to Jasper and no Alice watching to mess it all up!

I will not, however, do that incredibly mean thing and refuse to update unless I get a certain number of reviews. I think that's punishing your faithful readers, and it falls under the category of negative reinforcement. So the most I will do is beg shamelessly for feedback—the more reviewing, the less whining you'll get from me! Ye be warned.

Oh, and be sure to check out hopeisabluebird's pieces. They're brilliant, and I'd say that even if she wasn't my sister and therefore all too aware of where I sleep.

Bluebird and I have even developed a playlist to go with this story. I told you, we've lived and breathed this thing. The title and the feeling of this piece were inspired by Mary Chapin Carpenter's _10,000 Miles_. If you haven't heard it, please clock yourself on the head for me and head to youtube or itunes. Anyway, that's the song for the preface.

All right, enough waffling on my end. Please enjoy _Ivy Tree_!

Blessings!

BlindingFirefly

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"I cannot find my way: there is no star

In all the shrouded heavens anywhere;

And there is not a whisper in the air

Of any living voice but one so far

That I can hear it only as a bar

Of lost, imperial music, played when fair

And angel fingers wove, and unaware,

Dead leaves to garlands where no roses are.

"No, there is not a glimmer, nor a call,

For one that welcomes, welcomes when he fears,

The black and awful chaos of the night;

For through it all—above, beyond it all—

I know the far-sent message of the years,

I feel the coming glory of the Light."

—Edwin Arlington Robinson, "Credo"

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Preface:

The End

What had it all come to? What did it all mean, now when the world was dying? No matter how hard they'd work to save me, I could not be saved. Not from myself.

I looked at my life in the seconds I had left before Death came for me. For the first time in a long time, I was able to truly examine everything without fearing the pain of remembrance. There would be no pain, after all, in far too short a while. I could remember the good times, the bad times. Hitting my head on the diving board back home in Phoenix. Watching my mother say "I do" and feeling distaste at ever doing the same. Learning to ride my bike, which had taken me much longer to learn than it had other kids. After all, I didn't have the best of balance. It happened in Forks, actually, with Charlie looking as if no other eight year old had ever before accomplished the same milestone.

Meeting Edward…that was the most beautiful memory of all. I reviewed every moment that we had spent together, some memories more colorful than others, even though they were all vivid. In the sensory deprivation in which I now lived, many things could not be experienced this clearly. I savored every moment of it.

But now there is nothing else to be done. The fight was over, and I'd lost. We all had lost, but at least I'd had love. I had experienced the fullness of life. Even though I was greedy—please, let me experience more!—I knew that that wasn't likely. I'd run out of time.

There was only time enough now for one thing.

There was just enough time to die.


	2. The End

Disclaimer: If I owned it, I would have a bloodsucking lawyer of my own. The regular, Shakespearean kind, not the vampiric kind. But I don't have a vampire _or_ lawyer of my own, more's the pity, so no owning from my end.

A/N: There, aren't I nice to go ahead and put up this chapter? I hope you like it. I should probably do a little explanation before you dive in. Many of these early chapters are from Bella's pov, but they aren't…normal. Why? Because she never came out of her catatonic state, so these are written in a very stream of consciousness sort of way. Hopeisabluebird was vital for these chapters. It seems that I'm really good at writing Edward in all his angsty verboseness while Bella is more Bluebird's forte. I love writing Edward, so I'm fine with that. Anyway, Bluebird had a big hand in these chapters. Have faith—Edward's first chapter is up next!

Playlist selection for this chapter: My Immortal by Evanescence. (I know, I know that everybody and his brother and his cousin and his college roommate uses this song for Bella, but there's a reason for that: it fits. And while it hurts my creative pride to use it as well, dang it, it _fits! _

Blessings!

BlindingFirefly

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Darkness. So much darkness … no light ….

No … it was not darkness … It was a death shroud.

Wrapped in its edges … Lose consciousness…

Escape… Disappear…

Voices …

Voices in … room … fuzzy, anxious voices….

Mother…. Father….

"Charlie, how long has she been like this?" So agonized, so bewildered.

Don't … care … anymore...

Feelings…are … for the living….

"A week … I just couldn't hold off on calling you anymore. I don't know, Renee…this isn't right. I—I don't know what to do."

"And you think I do? Charlie, this is way beyond me. Do you think we should get a doctor in here? How long has it been since she's eaten anything?"

Scuffling noises ….

Feet moving….

"I can get her to swallow things sometimes, like chicken broth and water… But it's not enough. I was afraid to have a doctor see her, though….I thought it might scare her."

"What do we do? Oh, God, what do we do?"

Don't care … anymore …

Darkness… nice ….

Hide from …. pain here….

Hide from…the … memories… memories of _him_…

"Maybe I should take her back to Florida with me…"

"I wish you would," the deep voice said slowly. "I don't know if I can…if I can do it…if she needs to go somewhere…"

Dry sobs…. cut through air….

"I'm sorry, Renee…I didn't want to do this in front of you…"

"Oh, Charlie…"

More sobs … so loud… so dark….

"I know it's hard on you. It is on me too. I understand. It's going to be okay…we'll get her to a doctor, and they'll fix her. They have all kinds of treatments and medications and therapy now. She'll be our Bella again, I'm sure of it."

"I know who I'm going to fix if I can ever get my hands on him."

Rage….

"He's stolen my little girl, the son of a bitch…look at her, Renee! She's like an empty shell. Why did she take it so hard? It was just a boyfriend, dammit!"

"She loved him, Charlie. For someone like Bella, isn't that enough? You know how she is, how deeply she loves. You and I both know that she moved here, came away from her whole life, just so that I could be happy. I let her, because I thought it would be good for you to get to know your daughter again—but then she made friends and found Edward…"

Don't … flinch….

"…and I couldn't take her away from it all. God knows I wish I had. I just hope in Florida, away from the memories, that she'll be able to pull herself together again…"

Florida …

So… far away ….

He wasn't here anymore…

Not in Forks ….

Not in Florida ….

Too sunny … in Florida …

What if he couldn't find …. if he … looked?

But he's gone…

Will never look for ….

Too weak… too stupid….too slow….

Not strong enough…. for him….

Stop it … pain…

He has … distractions.

Not coming for ….

Do …. want him to?

Yes ….

As long as … were together ….

No … wouldn't be right for him ….

He wouldn't stay for … too worthless….

Florida….

Would be warm there ….

Don't really care anymore ….

Nothing ….

Take … to Florida …

It won't help….

Nothing will.

"So, you think I should take her back with me?"

"No… I want to keep her here with me. I haven't had enough time with her…. Not nearly enough time… But…I think it would be the best thing for _her_. It's not like she's herself anymore. There's certainly nothing in Forks that can handle a case like this…. Dr. Gerandy said he thought she was catatonic, and even I know that's bad. She would have to go away to Seattle or Olympia for even the bare essentials of care, and that's far away from the both of us."

A throat cleared itself….

"At least in Florida she'd have you and Phil, and I'll come down as often as I can."

"I guess we'd better pack her things then. I'll call Phil…. He'll know who to talk to, how to arrange everything…"

Enfolded … into … death shroud again…

No life here …

"Charlie, what in the world is this window doing wide open? She'll catch her death in this miserable cold!"

"She always kept it open. I don't know why…"

"Well, shut it, please. She doesn't need pneumonia on top of everything else."

Window slammed shut…. sound shatters…

He'll never come now…

No way in…no way out…

Swallowed in …. depth of …. black hole that was …. prison …

Don't come out….

Worthless….

Let … the coldness … take ….


	3. The Tolling of the Death Bell

Disclaimer: If I owned it, I'd have somebody with to cuddle with at night. Screw it; I'd love to have somebody to cuddle with even if I didn't own it. But if I owned it, I would certainly be a lot wealthier. And I'm rambling. I don't it own. Discussion and rambling over.

A/N: I hope you guys enjoy the first chapter from Edward's perspective! You gotta love his overly verbose, melodramatic tendencies because they give me plenty to work with. Do please review—it'll make me smile.

Playlist: Until I Find You Again by Richard Marx

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I lay curled up in the hot, tiny attic of some pitiful excuse for a house in South America. Misery, cold and cloying, washed over me …

How long had it been since I'd ruined my life? Who knew that the impenetrable vampire body could physically contain so much pain? I could feel every muscle, every nerve in my system, as if each individual one were hell-bent on giving me the utmost amount of pain possible.

Not that I didn't deserve it all. If I'd just listened to Alice in the beginning, if I'd only had the strength to stay away from her then instead of now, the suffering would not be so acute.

Mistake after mistake…I had to pay the price now.

I would pay any price, and pay it gladly, just as long as she stayed safe.

My cell phone rang for the twenty-seventh time. I allowed the sound to pass in one ear and out the other. What did I care about the outside world anymore? Let the phone ring—it had no more significance to me than a bell tolling in the nearby churchyard.

Maybe I should go back to Forks for a little while…just to check on her. I wouldn't speak to her, wouldn't let her see or hear me…I would keep my promise of no reminders, and then maybe I could find some peace of mind…I had to know if she was all right.

_Ring! Ring! Ring!_

No! Stay strong, Edward. She's fine. The frail human heart is healed easily enough—it's likely that you're nothing more than a bad dream to her now. She might have even said "yes" to someone else by now… Can you really disrupt her from that small amount of good, since she would have done as you meant for her to do? You would be more than a brute, and a hypocritical liar, if you were to enter her life again.

But what if she was unhappy? Shouldn't I go back just for a minute, just to make sure that all was well with her? I'd left for her happiness, for her survival. What if she wasn't surviving? I was supposed to protect her… it was my job….

Not anymore it's not.

The phone rang again. It was starting to become vaguely irritating to me. Why couldn't they all just leave me alone? I wasn't bothering anyone else with my misery. I knew that they missed me, but this was getting more than a little ridiculous. They all had their true loves with them after all. Oh, yes, I could admit it—I was bitterly jealous of my family. Never had it hurt more than now to be the odd man out of the Cullen clan—I'd finally experienced all that they had. And I'd ripped it away with my own two hands.

What did they need me for, anyway? I was only good for hearing other people's thoughts. It was ironic—I was forced to be a part of countless lives, doomed to experience their joys and sorrows, when I didn't even have my own life anymore. My life had disappeared with the wind the very moment I'd said those horrible, cruel words: "You're not good for me, Bella."

I despised myself.

Maybe I should just go and see her, just to check and see how she was doing…

_Ring! Ring! Ring!_

That damn phone rang again. I finally picked it up, not even bothering to check who the caller was on the view screen. I held the phone up in the air in front of me and said coldly, "Whatever you have to say to me, I'm definitely not interested." Then I clicked it shut, and returned to my endless cycle of thoughts.

I had never wished for sleep more than I did right now. Not only would it be nice to reach a quiet oblivion, but at least in my dreams I could see a faint echo of Bella's face, and be able to hear just the barest tenor of her voice.

_Ring! Ring! Ring!_

I let the phone ring another ninety-seven times before I pulled out of my misery enough to look wearily at the caller id. It was Alice, thank God, not Rosalie or….or….

If I'd had a heart, it would have sped up as the next thought crossed my mind. What if Alice had news…the _future_ kind of news? It was more likely that she was just asking me to come home again of course, but I should at least check. I owed my sister that much….

I opened the phone and held it to my ear. "What is it, Alice?" I asked, my voice rough from neglect.

"Edward."

Before I'd consciously thought of doing anything, my body froze solid. I'd only heard that tone of voice coming from Alice a few times before in the fifty years that we'd spent as brother and sister, and I knew exactly what it meant. The venom started to flow thickly in my mouth as my protector instinct surged to the forefront, and my body crouched defensively. I knew that Alice was either terrified out of her mind or upset beyond belief. Alice wasn't exactly flighty when it came to important things—something had to be seriously, horrendously wrong with either her or with someone in our family.

"What, Alice? Is it Jasper? Esme? Carlisle?" I asked quickly, horror coming over me as I wondered which one of my family members was in trouble.

"I'm so sorry, Edward, I just didn't see it! Please don't be angry with me, I don't know how long she's been this way, I'm just so damn sorry…" Alice's quick words tumbled over themselves, the syllables blurring in her effort to apologize.

"Alice," I growled. "_What is it?_"

"It's Bella," she sobbed.

I nearly broke the phone.

_What had I done?_

"She's not dead, Edward, it's not that," Alice said quickly, I'm sure in what she meant to be a reassuring tone. I was beyond being able to reply, though. "I just got a brief vision of her…I wasn't looking for her, Edward, I swear I wasn't! The vision just popped up in front of me, and I couldn't help but look a little further for her, I've just missed her so much…"

"Its okay, Alice, forget the promise for right now. Just tell me, quickly, please," I said, frozen.

Alice hesitated. "I don't even know how to tell you this…I don't even know where to start…oh, Edward… Bella's not in Forks anymore. She's in Florida."

Florida? That wasn't so bad, I supposed. Bella was with her mother, and they loved one another very much…it would be good for the both of them. Renee wouldn't let Bella take herself too seriously, and Bella would be able to take care of someone else again. It was probably the best thing that could have happened for Bella since I had left her for my own false distractions.

But Alice wouldn't be this upset if her vision was only about a change of address.

"It's not what you think, Edward," she said at my strained silence. "She's not at home with Renee and Phil at all…she's…oh, God. I just can't believe this is happening." Alice took a deep breath and then spoke in a rush, as if saying it quickly would make her words easier to bear. "Bella's been incarcerated in a facility."

My mind whirled as it tried to grasp at all of the implications of Alice's completely absurd statement. "What kind of facility are we talking about here, Alice?" I growled out, trying to hold back my angry snarls—had Bella been arrested? Was she in prison somewhere? I immediately began compiling plans and strategies for a break-out.

Even as schematics of jails and complicated security system information went skating rapidly through my brain, part of me laughed cynically a very little at the thought of the mind-numbing stupidity of what the humans had done. There was no way in hell I'd allow Bella to rot away in some godforsaken jail cell. Especially since her imprisonment was obviously due to the moronic mistake of some other human. Bella was _good_. She'd never, not in a million years, do something illegal … not for any reason. She'd never be able to justify something like that to herself. I sneered contemptuously. Bella couldn't even _lie_ properly without choking on the words. The idea of her doing something harmful intentionally was actually laughable.

…so why wasn't Alice laughing?

"It's not a jail, Edward. It's a mental institution, just outside of Miami," Alice whispered to me. "It's supposedly one of the best in the area. Edward," she said with a sudden, intense warning in her voice that I didn't understand, "I…I really don't think you should go to her. Don't go to Florida, Edward, I mean it. I don't want you to see it…her, I mean. Not like that. Never like that."

Without another word to Alice, I clicked the phone shut with my fingers. It seemed that I had a plane to catch.

I ran out the door in a blur of motion, absurdly grateful that the night had fallen while Alice and I had talked, and I was therefore free to push my legs as fast as they could go without having to be careful to remain unseen by the human population.

While my legs blurred at my frantic speed, I tried to figure out what could have happened for Bella's parents to have done something so extreme as to put her into an asylum's care. It wouldn't have been done on a whim of course. Bella's parents loved their daughter deeply. I knew that firsthand from my various interactions with them; this was not something Charlie or Renee would have done casually.

There was an obvious reason for their actions of course, one that I had seen immediately. Bella just might have told Charlie about the friendly neighborhood vampires that had been living in Forks for the past few years…_yes, Dad, didn't you know? I was dating a vampire the whole time. Oh! And I wanted to be one, too!_

I knew that it wouldn't have been a conscious decision on her part to blow the whistle on my family's secret. Bella would never do anything to hurt us… She would never do anything to cause Alice, Esme, Carlisle, and the rest pain or trouble. She was _selfless_. Retribution was entirely foreign to her nature.

It had to have been the merest slip of the tongue, and then Charlie had forced her to tell him the rest. He hadn't believed her story, of course…after all, what else could a thoroughly reality-bound person such as Charlie possibly think when his hereunto level-headed daughter suddenly started spouting off what he knew to be utter nonsense about a coven of vampires living just outside of town? He would have automatically thought that something was terribly wrong with her, and he wouldn't have known how to handle it.

Poor Charlie. If I wasn't so angered by the situation, I might have felt real sympathy for him. He'd been placed in a terrible position. It seemed I would owe him an apology, too. But he could wait—first I would grovel for Bella's forgiveness. A smile crossed my face at the thought. I would beg in the most hideous manner if necessary; it didn't matter. All that mattered was that I was on my way to her.

_Focus, Edward_, I told myself sternly. _After Bella told her story, what would Charlie have done?_

I continued on in my hypothesis. Bella had been forced to spill the beans of the century. Then, thinking it was the best thing for his daughter, Charlie had sent Bella home to Renee, and Renee had placed her in an institution once she'd seen Bella's deteriorated condition for herself. Charlie, Renee, and Phil would have believed that Bella would receive the help she so desperately needed at the psychiatric hospital. Then she would be able to let go of her dangerous delusions and return to a normal, healthy life. After all, they knew very well that vampires didn't exist! Likely it was all some kind of psychic break caused by the pain I'd caused her …. That's what they'd think.

I was prepared to bet all of my meaningless money on it.

Of course, there was that psychic break option to consider if I was going to be thorough about this. It might be a reality….

What if I _had_ hurt her that deeply?

My entire body shuddered at the thought even as I ran, causing the pavement under my foot to crack loudly. I kept running, paying no attention to the sound….

What if it was true that Bella was suffering delusions, hallucinations? What if she really was sick? …. Oh, God, had I broken her mind far, far worse than I had ever broken her body? Bones healed…but minds….

The world flashed by even faster, but I couldn't outrun that horrible thought. What if it were true? What if I'd taken something so pure, so innocent, and had callously introduced it to a world of pain that it simply could not withstand?

I'd locked her into a cage.

All Bella could do to fight the pain was to escape…and since she'd promised me to remain safe, the only way she could do that was to escape within her mind. She couldn't tell anyone… No one would understand… She would be trapped within the promise she'd made me. I'd never thought that my plea for her to take care of herself could have triggered this outcome…. Could I have possibly caused her more harm by leaving than I would have if I'd stayed?

After several seconds of pained speculation, I shook my head. No…. I decided; that theory was far and away beyond the realm of possibility. Bella was so strong… infinitely stronger in her will than I was, truthfully. No matter what happened, no matter what I did to her, Bella would survive in spite of me.

Well, that was a relief. So the first option was much more likely, then, I decided—a slip of the tongue, hello psych ward.

Imbeciles.

But what could possibly be so bad that Alice would tell me not to go to Bella when she so obviously needed me? Alice loved Bella, almost as much as I did. Her first instinct would be to go to her friend, not to caution me to keep away.

Alice had said something about how Bella looked in the vision. How then was Bella being treated? I panicked anew at the thought of Bella's delicate body being subjected to modern medical tests and needles and scans and …God forbid … electroshock therapy. Doctors still did that for severe, recurring depression. What if they thought that Bella was depressed and performed that treatment on her? It was more humane now than it had been in Alice's day and age, granted, but it was still a gruesome option in my opinion, especially when I considered Bella's glass-frail skin.

Not to mention the medications that were out there for psychic ailments…some of them had horrendous side effects…then there was the medical care personnel themselves. More than one had been guilty of abuse and neglect in the past…

If they'd hurt her in any way, I would break them into a million pieces before taking her away from it all. I would grind them into dust. I would make them pay …

It didn't matter to me how bad Bella looked …. Alice obviously didn't realize that. One look into those fathomless, chocolate eyes within Bella's delicate face was enough to hold me for all the endless years of forever. I didn't care if they'd chopped her hair off, as they'd done to Alice, or if she was scarred or bruised from treatment and medication. I would save her from all of that pain. I would make her whole again, if it took everything I had.

The thought that I was being her guardian again, as I'd so longed to be, sent a pulse of joy through my silent heart. Somehow, I would fix this mess that I'd put us both in. I'd made a mistake—I realized that now. I would have to face the consequences of that mistake. But the possibility of redemption was still alive for me. Bella and I were both still left on the planet, and the only thing keeping us apart now were a few miles of freeway. It definitely wasn't insurmountable.

I'd left because I'd thought that Bella couldn't be safe with me. Now I could see clearly that she couldn't be safe _without_ me—her danger magnet had even landed her in an insane asylum! I couldn't leave her, it seemed…and thank God for that small favor. We would be together again, and I would defy the future once more. I was strong enough for that, I was sure of it. This time, _I_ would be the victor.

The airport was just in front of me—it couldn't approach my view fast enough.

_I'm coming, Bella!_

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A/N: Annnnd that's what's going on! Isn't Edward awesomely angsty and unconditional? Anyway, please review. If you do, not only will you earn my respect, but you'll get some of the extremely unlikely snowfall like the kind I currently see outside my window. Not to mention you might get a mythical creature to play in the snow with…


	4. Still Waters

Disclaimer: If I owned it there would be a character with my name in the story, hopefully with an Irish vampire to call my own. I would have sparkly, pimple-less skin and an infinite back account that I could use to go shopping with Alice to my heart's content. I am not a character in the book. I do not have an Irish vampire to call my own. I certainly do _not_ have an infinite bank account. My skin ain't bad, but acne is definitely a bane of my existence. My best friend's name _is _Alyce. However, one out of five isn't enough to quantitatively make me the author, so don't even think about a lawsuit.

A/N: SORRY! The day got away from me. However, this chapter is going up before midnight, so it's technically still Wednesday…

Some of you have complained that the Bella chapters are hard to understand. I can only sympathize and advice you to read them carefully. There are quite a few clues in there for later, and if you're smart you'll look for them. Honestly, I find these chapters quite revealing. They were difficult to write, but they were fascinating explorations of Bella's mental state. Bluebird wanted to especially stress Bella's feeling of worthlessness. She wasn't worth the space she was taking up on the earth…she wasn't worthy of Edward. Keep that in mind as you're reading. And just wait—things will get a lot more comprehensible soon.

I hope you enjoy the update! Please leave me some love; I find your lack of reviews disturbing. Yes, I totally went there and quoted Darth Vader.

Playlist: Underwater by Vertical Horizon

Blessings!

BlindingFirefly

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Squeaky food cart wheels…

Darkness….

"And how are we doing today, Bella? You should look around, you know, because I think it's a lovely day outside…"

Voice…babbling on…

"…and your mother told me on her last visit how much you like the sunshine. You should be out on a beach on a day like today, young lady, not stuck in this dull old place. Whenever you decide to wake up, though, the beaches will be here. I would just get on it sooner rather than later if I were you—the beaches may never change, but the way you look in a bathing suit sure does!"

Eyelids pushed open …

Darkness ….

Harsh … take it away…..it hurts….

Can anything hurt …. now ….

"_Well, I wasn't going to live without you, of course._"

"Good morning, Miss Swan. It's Dr. Coleman."

Leave … alone…

Hold … together…

Why is it always winter here?

Is it … just ….

"Can you squeeze my finger, even a little? Blink if you can hear me, Bella."

Silence….

Pen scratches against paper….

So loud … it hurts … ears…

Darkness … how long has it been?

The darkness … so safe …

Don't feel… so… alone… so worthless…

Stay here…

"No response as usual, doctor …"

"Continue present treatment protocol, Linda. Don't know what we're going to do with this one honestly … she's so lost in there … I just don't know how to reach her. None of the usual treatments seem to make any difference to her at all."

Alice…can you see … now, Alice? Is this what you saw, long ago?

When was it … anyway?

In what lifetime were … we all together?

"_Don't worry. You're human—your memory is no more than a sieve. Time heals all wounds for your kind._"

Human…so despising…

Don't want…to be human…

Human…not enough…for him…

He left…

Who knew hell could be so dark?

"Hiya, Bells. I miss having you around the place…what I wouldn't give for some of your cooking! Pizza can sure get old. I'd forgotten—you spoiled me so much that I'm surprised I haven't mildewed yet."

Gruff laughter….

"Seriously, Bells, I…I miss you, baby. Please, honey, can't you wake up? Can't you talk to me? Even just a little? Just give me some hope, here. That's all I'm asking for, Bella. Just give me a hint that you're still in there somewhere."

Can't wake up … dead, Charlie.

Put me into the ground …where I belong ….

Night … day … both so dark ….

How long has it been?

Throat itches … it hurts … please get it out of ….

Edward ….

Don't say the name….

Don't think it….

Don't exist….

Lost.

"_And so the lion fell in love with the lamb…_"

Lies!

What lion……really loves stupid…weak…lamb?

"Bella, it's me. It's Mom. Phil couldn't come with me today; he's coaching his students in a really big game! He thinks they're gonna win, though. He'll be by later this evening to see you, sweetie, so don't you worry."

Chair legs squeal … pulled across the linoleum floor….

"He took me ice skating yesterday, and we had so much fun! You know how much I hate the ice, Bella, but this actually wasn't so bad. But it would have been better if you were there...oh, sweetheart, I miss you so much. I love you, Bella. You can break out of this if you try, you know. You're strong enough."

No ….

No … don't … want….

Nothingness….

Darkness …

"Her blood sugar levels are down again today, Doctor."

"Better put in a glucose IV then, Linda."

Hear screams echoing from down the hall …

Curl up …. Keep together …

Lost …

"_Will you be? Will you really be here?" _

"_As long as you want me." _

"_I'll always want you. Forever."_

Don't … think….

Cold … so cold … snowing …

Am … alive … dead …

What is this place?

"Hey, Bella, it's me. Linda. It's time for your meds! I'm injecting them into your IV, just like I always do….and there you go! You feel better now, all right?"

Pen scratches …. so loud …

Not … a … science experiment…

What … are they testing … Just how far the mind can stretch?

Leave … alone …

Don't … want ….

"_Heaven forbid that I should do anything I don't want to do._"

Needle pricks … never end ….

"No reactions to external stimuli…only the most perfunctory of reflexes still operating. Poor kid—they said on her intake form that she was an honor student before all this happened to her."

"Do we know the cause, Doctor? It's very unusual to see this in one so young."

"There's not a thing about this case that can be considered 'usual.' Her mother told us at the time of Bella's preliminary evaluation that her daughter's boyfriend, whom Bella apparently loved very much, dumped her unexpectedly and left town."

Be quiet … oh, _please_ be quiet ….

Don't think … safer ….

"And _that_ caused _this _reaction? Isn't that a little excessive?"

"Who can fathom the way a mind works?"

Especially mine ….

No light ….

No warmth … no … sunshine …

Nothing ….

No more ….

Cold ….

Woods …. why couldn't they leave me …. Leave me there to die ….

Monitors beeping ….

Throat …. hurts ….

"_I love you. It's a poor excuse for what I'm doing, but it's still true."_

Lost ….

Lost inside … safe ….

No one can hurt … not ever again ….

"Wake up, Bells…oh, please, Bella, wake up…I need you, baby."

"Isabella Marie Swan, you just pull yourself out of this funk right now! Do you hear me, young lady? Right now, I mean it!"

Sobbing ….

Broken heaves of breathing ….

Noises ….

Darkness ….

So much …. pain …

So sorry…

Only worthless….

Not worth the tears….

Only human….

"_Take care of yourself."_

I am…

………………………………………………………………………………………………

A/N: Review and your favorite book character (any book character, not just Twilight) will visit you. Refrain from reviewing and I will channel by mad Darth Vader skilz and choke you through my computer screen. MUAHAHAHAHA! (Disclaimer: Not really. I can't condone murder. But honestly, is reviewing that hard, children? It takes a grand total of three seconds, maybe six if you're a slow typist. Click the button. You know you want to!)


	5. Wilted

Disclaimer: If I owned it, I'd have my own personal Edward around who could drive me everywhere in a fabulous car. Instead, I have to drive for hours on end in a car without cruise control, thus resulting in some really interesting leg cramps. Obviously, I don't own Twilight, which means that I am all too often the victim of said really interesting leg cramps.

A/N: I apologize for my tardiness in posting this chapter. I went on spring break and went out of town to visit the college I'm transferring to, so life got a little hectic. However, I am making it up to you now with another gloriously angsty Edward chapter! Bluebird helped some, but this chapter is almost entirely my own. (I can't promise that I will always post everything exactly when I say I will, because that doesn't allow for that hectic little thing called life, but I will promise to try my best. Please, no Yoda quotes on "do or do not, there is no try." I heard that enough from my mother as a child.)

This chapter is dedicated to PixiePrincess88, a dear friend of Bluebird's and mine, and out future roommate. We are truly a League of Extraordinary Explicators! Or something to that effect, anyway. She finally joined the party here on fanfic, so be sure to check her out!

Review! I beg unashamedly for reviews! Your prize for doing so will be waiting for you at the bottom of this chapter. Which means you have to read the whole thing. Hehe, I marvel myself with my evil genius skills sometimes.

Playlist: Half a World Away by Secret Garden and Someday by Nickelback

………………………………………………………………………………………………

The Miami darkness was warm and wet. It would have felt nice to my icy skin if I'd taken the time to notice it at all. The plane had moved absurdly slow through the air. I had found myself wondering if it would have been faster to simply run all the way myself. At least then I wouldn't have had to sit there in those absurd little seats, letting my mind race and making my eager body play the human game.

But if I had run, then I would have had to avoid humans along the way. I'm not sure if my willpower could have resisted the hours of the day on the open road, a road that I was finally free to follow. I would have run in the open, and I could possibly have been seen. The airplane was definitely the safest course, even though I was irritated at having to play it safe at all.

It hadn't taken me long upon touching down at the airport to find out just where Bella had been incarcerated. A few phone calls, a bribe or three, and information that was supposedly inaccessible was suddenly mine. A slightly larger bribe was required in order to discover which room in the psychiatric hospital was Bella's. But in the end, the sum was still mere pocket change to a Cullen. One effortlessly incapacitated human later (how easily they are pushed into unconsciousness!), and I was in possession of a hospital worker's uniform and identification card, which I quickly adapted to fit my own picture. The whole process from start to finish had only taken me two hours to complete, and by the time I was finished, night had fallen. The hospital was situated outside of the city, in the quiet countryside. It was dark, with minimal street lights.

Perfect.

I walked casually through the staff entrance of the building, scanning my identification card with the ease of an experienced and slightly bored worker. After many decades of practice, I now knew how to be inconspicuous, even among ordinary humans—people could see me and then forget me only two seconds later. If I looked as if I belonged to the crowd of sheep-like humans, then they would notice nothing and remember less.

I pulled my uniform cap down low over my face, though, partially concealing my youth and beauty. If someone noticed my outrageous perfection, then they would be certain to either commit my face to memory or mention my presence in the hospital to someone else. Now more than ever before, I wished to remain invisible.

Too bad invisibility wasn't a vampire gift along with speed and strength.

The elevator was empty when I walked through its doors. Pleased that my luck was holding out so far, I pushed the button with the number five on it with an infinitesimally trembling hand. That elevator couldn't move up the building fast enough, but I knew that I couldn't take the stairs. According to my observations, ordinary humans usually avoided exertion whenever possible, and a bored and weary janitor walking up five flights of stairs could only be seen as suspicious or abnormal.

When the doors finally opened, I nearly fell over from what greeted me. It was _her_ scent, her mind-numbingly wonderful smell! Beneath the cleanser and medication smells more typical of this setting, I could smell that floral smell. It permeated the air, and with the scent came the memories of happier times.

It was odd, but her scent didn't evoke the bloodlust in me at all. The venom didn't start flowing in my mouth, and I didn't feel as if I had to fight for control, for sanity. I could have laughed with relief—it didn't bother me anymore! Bella would be safe with me now! It seemed that our long separation had had its good points, even though I wasn't sure yet whether the pain was worth this small victory.

I could only hypothesize that having had to live without Bella, for having thought she was dead for even those few seconds before Alice had explained what was going on, had so changed my perspective that I could never again act in a way that might bring Bella into danger. I dreaded her loss above all else, because I knew the pain that her loss would cause. I knew the pain and feared it.

The monster within me had finally died—in this, at least, I was the victor.

I followed her heady scent like a drunken man. It overwhelmed all my senses…except that one extra sense which I could never escape. I was grateful for it at the moment, though. My mind scanned the minds of those around me, looking for possible threats and for any helpful information.

During this process, I learned that the man in room ten had bitten the orderly again. Doctor Scabland was adjusting medications again for the woman in room six—she _still_ thought she was a duck. Nurse Logan was seeing Doctor McKinley on the side—it was about time the doctor found someone and settled down. After all, his wife had died of cancer over five years ago! The poor girl in room seven thirteen still hadn't said a word or moved since her arrival five months ago. The doctors were running out of options with her—she wasn't doing well at all. Did you hear about the foul-up that the managerial staff made? Ordered seventy-five pounds of _beets_ when the nutritionists had asked for _beef_! Gladys nearly murdered them!

_Room seven thirteen._ I stopped when that thought fully registered in my mind.

According to my informant, room seven hundred and thirteen was Bella's room.

Hadn't said a word?

Hadn't moved?

Running out of options?

What did "wasn't doing well" _mean_?

Horror pulsed through me, thick and sickening. Oh, God…what if the psychic break theory _were_ true? What if…what if it wasn't all just a huge misunderstanding? What if Bella really did need to be in a psychiatric hospital?

_What had I done?_

Throwing caution to the wind, I ran down the hall, moving so fast that no human could possibly see me. At the door to room seven thirteen, I hurtled fluidly to a stop, angling myself in the doorframe so that I couldn't be seen from the nurses' station, and listened as hard as I possibly could.

All I could hear from within the room was shallow, even breathing.

But the light, singing heartbeat I recognized instantly—it was the heartbeat to my world, since I had none of my own.

I'd found Bella.

Without even realizing what I was doing, without even registering opening the door and walking through the doorway, I found myself standing inside her room. I was finally seeing her again, and I finally understood just what I had done to her.

Alice was right.

Bella was curled up in a tiny ball on a narrow metal bed with bars down the side, enclosing her body. Her pitifully frail arms were wrapped around her legs, keeping them clutched tightly to her chest. The white blankets were clean, but they were made of the cheapest kind of material, and they heightened the painful pallor of Bella's skin. Her dark hair, cut short so that it hung limply around her face instead of spilling like seaweed onto the pillow, looked lank and lusterless.

An IV stand was beside her bed, a clear plastic bag dripping thick white fluid into her veins through a small tube that tied her effectively to the bed. A feeding tube had been shoved down her throat, but it didn't appear to have helped very much. The lines of Bella's face stood out so sharply that it looked like a carving that hadn't been smoothed yet by the sculptor. Her cheeks were hollow, and all of the brilliant color was gone from them now. The gentle rise and fall of her chest was steady, but unenthused. She looked like a recent escapee from a concentration camp, and I was terrified by her horrific thinness. How could they have allowed this to happen to her? I didn't have to be a genius to see for myself that Bella was starving, wasting away into nothingness.

She was so frail, so thin. She was insubstantial… like a ghost.

She was disappearing before my eyes.

All of these things stabbed me with guilt and pain, but what I saw next chilled me even more than death had all those years ago.

Coal-black bruises surrounded Bella's eyes. They were even deeper than the circles that habitually circled the eyes of a vampire.

But Bella's eyes were not closed in sleep, as I had thought when I'd heard the steady beat of her heart. They were open, and they were the eyes of Death. They were no longer the liquid chocolate pools in which I had frequently drowned myself. No longer did they reveal emotions and thoughts and fears and dreams. These eyes were completely flat—I could read nothing at all in them. They were looking at me, but they did not see me. They saw things which I had never seen and would never fully understand.

I looked into those eyes, the ones that I loved far better than the stars in the sky, and saw only a phantom, a hoarse whisper of what I had seen the last time I'd looked into them. In the forest when I had been saying good-bye to her, those dark eyes had been filled with sorrow, confusion, self-loathing, and a gut-wrenching resignation. Now, I saw only black holes. The intelligent, joyful mind that I could only read through her eyes was completely gone.

I realized then that Bella was awake and looking at me and it was as if she was looking at a wall. Not even that could be considered entirely true. Eyes looking at a wall could still see color and texture and shape.

Bella's eyes looked at a wall, looked at me, and they saw nothing at all.

I staggered back and hit the cinderblock wall with my shoulders, my eyes locked within that terrifying vacuum of her gaze. Unable to keep standing, I slid along the wall to the floor, finally managing to take my eyes away from hers. "Oh, God! What have I done?" I mouthed, not even able to give volume to my words. My face fell into my hands as I lost the ability to even hold my head up. "Bella! Alice never saw this future! She never saw this…I would have never let this happen… How has it come to this?"

I don't know how I long I sat there.

Bella's cold, dead eyes kept staring right through me.

Eventually I worked up the courage to stand up and walk to her side, to stand over her breakable body. "Bella? Bella?" I said softly, gently. "It's me, Bella. It's Edward. Can you hear me, Bella?"

There was no response—not even from her heart. When had her heart ever failed to respond to me, even when the rest of her hadn't? But her heart was quiet and steady and totally unmoved by my presence.

"I've come back, Bella. Alice said she saw you, and I came to find you…oh, Bella, I didn't know. I didn't know! I would have come ages ago, but I had no idea any of this was happening…please, Bella, look at me. _Really_ look at me. Please, just once."

She didn't even blink.

Gingerly I sat down beside her. I was hideously afraid to touch her—she looked more brittle now than ever. I was afraid that even breathing too hard on her might shatter her frail body. Hesitantly, I lifted one cold finger and swept a short strand of hair out of her face. The feeling of her warm skin below my finger again made me feel like I'd come home again, but the homecoming was bitter beyond belief.

Yes, her smell was the same, if not quite as rich as I remembered. She was still just as warm as she'd ever been. _But she wasn't my Bella_. She might as well have been a…a statue that had been heated by the sun. All she did were the most basic human functions, breathing in and out, her heart beating nonchalantly as if it really had nothing better to do for the moment, so it might as well contract and relax for a little while longer.

Bella, I recognized, couldn't even really be considered human anymore. Humanity is all about the soul—this creature, this beautiful, tormented creature that I loved more than anyone had ever loved anything before, looked as soulless as I believed myself to be.

I continued to talk to her, to try and evoke some kind of reaction out of her, but nothing I did changed a thing. It was as if I didn't exist, as if she herself didn't exist.

Finally, in desperation, I leaned down and pressed my trembling lips against her cold, unmoving ones. I prayed for her to attack me, to faint, to scream, to do _anything_.

There was no change.

Bowed down by my overwhelming grief, I sank limply to the floor beside Bella's bed. I couldn't think past my emotions as I pressed my cheek into the bleach-smelling floor. For once, even the voices inside my head were silenced. I could only feel, and the feelings were beyond description. Misery was a weak shadow of what I felt. Guilt would have been a nice relief. I would have welcomed depression with open arms if I could escape what was coursing through my mind and soul at this very moment.

A tiny, ice-cold hand wrapped itself around my wrist then, and I found myself looking up hopelessly into the wise, sorrowful eyes of my sister. It was Alice.

"_I came,"_ she thought very gently, as if I was a wild animal that might bolt suddenly if frightened. "_I saw that you would need me, and I came as fast as I could manage it. Jasper didn't like it, but he came with me. He's waiting in the parking lot with a car."_ She tugged insistently on my arm. "_Come on, Edward. We'll come back to her, I promise, but we can't do anything more here tonight."_ She looked over at the form on the bed without meeting Bella's eyes and shuddered. "_We'll get her out of here tomorrow, and then we'll see what we can do_."

"I'm staying," I said thickly, stubbornly. "You can't make me leave her."

"If you stay, you'll get arrested," said Alice aloud with a spark of anxiety flaring up in her eyes. "_Think what that will mean_._"_

"I don't care."

"I do. And so will you, when the Volturi hear about a strange man with gold eyes and skin that sparkles getting hauled into jail. They'll kill you if you don't leave with me now. There's no way you could avoid detection."

"Then let them kill me!" I moaned, keeping my voice down so that I wouldn't startle Bella, forgetting that that probably wasn't going to happen now. "I welcome death, Alice. Death would be infinitely preferable to being responsible for…for…" I stuttered, unable to speak further, to find the words.

"Edward Cullen." Alice's eyes sparkled dangerously now. "Either you walk out of this room with me this minute, or I throw you out to the parking lot through the wall. It's your choice. For myself, I would prefer to keep Bella in this room so that we'll know where she is when we come back to break her out, but that can be worked around. Do you understand me, Edward? _Bella doesn't want you dead, you fool!_"

All of the fight went out of me, and I finally nodded. Whether Bella would want me dead or not was debatable, but I would never be able to help her if I was being hauled to Italy for trial and death. I was the best possible hope for her, and I had to keep myself alive, if only to keep the dream of her recovery alive.

I allowed myself to be led out of the room, down the stairs in order to avoid the nurses and staff, and out the door by Alice, who kept one arm firmly around my waist. To my surprise, it was Carlisle's Mercedes that hummed quietly in a pool of darkness under some palm trees. I wondered how fast they had driven to get here in time to help me. They must have already been driving when Alice had called me—she'd known that telling me not to come wouldn't do any good.

Alice gently shoved me into the backseat, her hand protecting my head from smashing into the roof. It wouldn't have hurt my head, but the roof would have been the worse for the wear. I didn't care. I didn't care about anything at all.

Jasper turned his head around and looked at me in sudden alarm. "Is it that bad, then?" he asked quietly as Alice got in beside me.

"Yes," Alice said, rubbing her temple with her fingers. It looked as if she was trying to push the images out of her mind. I wished that I could do the same. "Drive on to the hotel, Jasper. We've got to figure some things out. This is going to take some planning, and we don't have much time to do it in." She glanced swiftly in my direction before muttering to Jasper under her breath, "It didn't look like she was going to last all that much longer …Whatever we're going to do, we need to do it quickly." I didn't try to look in Alice's head to understand what had prompted her words to Jasper—I didn't want to see the vision of that future.

I could feel and hear Jasper trying to calm me down with his gift to manipulate the emotions of others, but it didn't help me now. I didn't even try to fight him at all, as I usually did. I would have welcomed a reprieve, but I knew the truth of his failure now. Nothing on earth could alleviate this pain—nothing but the sight of life and love in those chocolate eyes again. I would give anything to see that just once more, but I was afraid that I had ruined it forever.

Bella was as strong and tenacious as the vine, but she needed support and protection in order to flourish. She just couldn't fight the whole world by herself. When we were together, I was the oak tree. I was her stay and guardian, allowing her to cling to my branches and reach untold heights. But when I had left her, I had exposed her to the sun and the wind, and I had left her to face the cruelty of the world alone. Could I really be surprised by the fact that the vine which used to be so vibrant in color and so shiny in texture had wilted away into near nothingness?

All of the beauty of my life had gone away, wilted away along with her. What was the oak tree without the vine? What was Edward without Bella?

It was a world without love, without potential. Better never to have existed than to have caused such a desecration. I was guilty of murdering the health and sanity of one precious, human girl, and there was no punishment cruel enough to fit my crime.

I leaned my head back against the leather seat, and wished for oblivion.

………………………………………………………………………………………………

A/N: In the words of my favorite college professor, "So? What'd you think?" He says that at almost every class as he leans back on the back two legs of his chair and puts his hands behind his head. It makes me smile. Anyway, yes, please leave us some love! I positively yearn to know what you guys are thinking. As a reward: if I get ten reviews for this chapter, I'll put up the next chapter on Monday. That's two whole days early, folks. As you can see, I mean business! Review, me hearties!


	6. Let the World Burn

Disclaimer: If I owned it, my fingers would have automatic recall for those piano pieces I keep trying to play. As it stands now, that stupid E flat keeps messing me up. Obviously, therefore, I am not a vampire, nor am I Stephenie Meyer. So if you try to sue me for infringement or whatever, you have no case. Yeah, sucks to be you.

A/N: I am positively _thrilled _with the results of that last chapter! I've gotten ten reviews so far, with hopefully a few more to come! I can't tell you how much it meant to me. Now see? See how obliging I am when I get reviews? Here's another chapter for you! Go ye therefore and do thou likewise again, my peeps. The reward for reviews will again be at the bottom of this chapter.

This chapter is actually pretty significant to the story, so don't gloss over it, please. It foreshadows some lovely drama and there's a revealing dream from Bella.

Okay, so I'll stop rambling now. Read, review and love!

Playlist: Untitled by Simple Plan (so perfect it's scary…) and Let Me Fall by Josh Groban

………………………………………………………………………………………………

Curl up …

Keep …. Together ….

How long ….can …. bear this ….

Throat hurts ….

Wrists …. ache ….

So itchy ….

Everything … so dark ….

Lost ….

"_It will be as if I'd never existed._"

Exist here….inside my mind…

Where it's safe.

"Doctor, those bedsores are just getting worse and _worse_. I'm afraid that we're going to be flirting with infection if something isn't done about them soon. Surely there's _some_ kind of restraint that will work!"

"It's infuriating to me, too, Linda. Everything we try she either pulls out of or she hurts herself while she's trying to break out of it. I don't know why, but she feels that she has to stay curled up in that position. Even when we sedate her, she stays the way she is. I've never seen anything like it." A heavy sigh. "She must have a very strong will for her to still be this stubborn even while in a catatonic state."

_"You've got a bit of a temper, don't you?"_

_"I don't like double standards."_

"I keep trying to think of a way to work that stubbornness in our favor, but it's like nothing matters to her anymore. Nothing sparks a fire in her at all, except staying on _this_ path, no matter what it costs her. I think…I think she wants to die, and this is the only way she knows how to do it."

She's right ….

Nothing matters …. Not worth it….

There is no fire … only cold …..

Endless ….

Hopeless ….

Esme … hope she's happy with Carlisle …. She got her happy ending ….

Wonder …. she felt …. like this .... just before she jumped …. that cliff ….

"_But not bad. No, I don't believe that you're bad._"

"_You're wrong._"

He's not bad….

Human is.

Don't think ….

Don't remember ….

"It's Mom again, Bella. I just wanted to let you know that Charlie called. He won't be able to make it down this weekend to see you like he thought…don't worry, sweetie, he's fine, but one of the gas stations got robbed and he has to take care of that. He said to tell you that he's sorry and that he loves you. He'll be down to see you again just as soon as he gets another weekend off from work."

Want to go home ….

Where …. home?

So cold ….

Let …. world burn ….

Don't care anymore ….

"This kid is gonna be in for a hell of a lot of physical therapy if she ever wakes up. There's a lot of muscle atrophy and bone deterioration going on inside there."

"She's a mess, all right."

Could have told …. you that ….

"Nurse Kelly to room fourteen, please. Nurse Kelly to room fourteen."

Needles …. hurt….

Pulling …. eyelids …..

Leave …. the dark.

"Hello, Bella. It's Dr. Coleman again. I'm just checking your vital signs now."

What will ….my heart tell you?

That …am…. alive?

Wrong …. so wrong ….

"_You put on a good show. But I'm willing to bet that you're suffering more than you let anyone see._"

He knew then….wonder if he'd know now?

Not coming.

Home ….

Know ….. where it is ….. now ….

Home ….. Edward's arms…

But he's gone …..

He doesn't exist ….. anymore …..

Don't exist ….. either…

"So I told him that I didn't want to go on a date with him, and I seriously thought that he was gonna cry! What an idiot to even ask me…the guy still lives at home with his mom, for pete's sake! He's not even _cute!_"

"You did the right thing, then. Some guys just aren't worth the trouble. Come on; let's finish mopping these floors so that we can go out after work. I heard there's a new bar open in Miami, seemed like a place we'd like…"

So cold …

Touch …. of flame ….

Did someone start ….. fire ….. after all?

I'll be warm, then …. as ….as I die ….

Flame now ….. by …..

Lost ….

Do you see ….Alice?

See nothingness?

A smell …

Beautiful ….

Wild ….

Indescribable scent ….

Not antiseptic…not insanity…nothing I usually smell….

Recognition…smell of vampire…

Smells like him …..

Edward ….

Can't be …. wish….

"_Twilight again. Another ending. No matter how perfect the day is, it always has to end._"

"_Some things don't have to end._"

But most things do ….

Know that …. now …..

Don't think …. don't feel …. don't exist ….

Edward…

Drift to sleep….

Fall asleep….

Don't dream… don't dream the same dream….

Want… the same dream….

_Surrounded by trees … _

_The branches reach out… claw out… clutch … face… neck …hair… body… _

_Leaves cradle face… and then take revenge… only gashes left behind…_

_Blood falls… pooling on green… red on green…. always red on green…_

_He's just ahead…Edward…never close …. always just ahead…._

_Run…. find him… follow him….desperately follow him…_

_Flash of white … always just ahead…_

_He turns… face around…_

_You fall forward … exhausted … exhilarated … at his feet…._

_Reach up… touch his face….feel the smooth chill again…breathe the wild, wild scent again… look into the honey eyes again …. so safe…_

_He gently pushes hand away… honey hardens…. into stone… can't fight the strength of his hand…_

_Know what's coming…. _

_It's the same every night… night after night… every night…_

_It never works… but you try anyway… beg… maybe this one time…_

"Please… please stay."

_Maybe this time…_

"Please don't leave me again."

_Edward!_

"Stay with me."

_One last look… he turns away… and disappears._

_Too stupid to entrance him… too weak to hold him… too frail to keep him…_

_Only human…never anything more…._

_Not good enough… never good enough…_

_Believe this…_

_It's the truth._

_He leaves … again…_

_Shattered…_

_Scream into the nothingness… scream although no sound fills the air… _

_Scream until it stabs … viciously… violently…_

_Scream until it slashes … into the heart and… leaves …a dark hole behind…._

_Scream until … throat … rips… tears_

_Just scream…._

_Exhausted…._

_Flash of flame in front … of you…_

_Victoria…_

Let her come.

Let it end.

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A/N: Okay! So, are you all nice and confused? Or do you think you have a clue about what just happened? Write me a note and tell me! It's that nice little button right down there. You click it and you write for a second and you make me happy. It's a wonderful little process, isn't it?

Anyway, the reward for reviewing today will be as follows: the fifteenth person to review this chapter will get the next chapter dedicated to them. Isn't that cool? I thought so. Oh, and mad props go out to PrincessFerdinand, who went back and reviewed my other chapters just to up my numbers. It was much appreciated!


	7. Checkmate

Disclaimer: If I owned it, I would be a vampire. If I were a vampire, I would have perfect recall. If I had perfect recall, I would not be scared crapless over this Spanish test tomorrow. I am scared crapless over this Spanish test. Therefore, I do not have perfect recall, I am not a vampire, and I do not own Twilight. LOGIC, PEOPLE!

A/N: WHOA, FOLKS! You guys COMPLETELY overwhelmed me with the response to the last chapter, and it wasn't even an Edward chapter! You rock! I can't even tell you how happy it made me to see all of your reviews. Bluebird was absolutely chirping away in her insanely busy study corner! (She works constantly. I swear, she puts me to shame.)

However, some of you had questions which prompted a rather lengthy author note, so listen up!

Hopefully this next chapter will clear away a lot of your confusion, so I won't address the, "Huh? What does Victoria have to do with anything?" questions because they're gonna be answered in my own brilliant words in a minute. Some of you have, however, asked how Bella can still be thinking when she's in a catatonic state. Yes, I'm well aware of the fact that she's in a catatonic state. You don't have to remind me—I'm the evil writing genius that put here there! Note my, um, evilness!

However, you guys have to remember several facts as you're reading this: A.) Bella has always been known for shielding her thoughts. Her mind is still somewhat intact, even though she's in this almost frozen in carbonite condition. B.) Bella can still think and feel and hear what is going on around her. She just can't take part in any of it. She has literally sealed herself away so that she can no longer have an effect on the world around her. She feels that she is utterly worthless, and anything she does will just cause harm to someone in the end. But she is confused, so she can smell a vampire's scent, but not realize that Edward is really and truly with her again. She'll just think that it's all a dream. C.) Any further questions? I'll answer the ones I can and make you wallow in misery for further updates for the others!

Now that that's taken care of, we have a few more items of business to take care of. I know, yawn yawn yawn. Just try to bear with me here; after all, you aren't the only ones suffering through this obscenely long author's note. You guys are keeping me from watching the next episode of Stargate: SG-1. (My latest addiction. Yes, Bluebird, I know I watch too much TV. My reply to this is: And…that'sssssssss bad?) Name that movie and you'll get a shout-out from me! Teehee!

Ahem. Major kudos go out to all of you—I was thrilled beyond belief at the twenty reviews and even one PM that this chapter got me. (Thanks for the double whammy, rel95. You sure are thorough!) However, the biggest amount of kudos of all (what are kudos, anyway???) go to trinityamber for being the fifteenth reviewer on the last chapter. Thank you so much! This chapter is officially dedicated to you. (And no, Bella doesn't sleepwalk, to answer your question.)

Okay, reward for reviews is at the bottom. Enjoy Edward's angsty grumpiness! I think it's rather marvelous, personally, and we get to see a showcase of some other Cullen skillz in this chapter. God, I love writing these characters.

Playlist: In My Arms Again by Michael W. Smith and Walk Away From the Sun by Seether.

………………………………………………………………………………………………

I stumbled clumsily as Alice and Jasper, each with a hand under one of my arms, led me into a hotel room. I wasn't aware enough of anything to even see if it was a nice room or not or whether there were beds or if there were any walls or doors. A newborn vampire could have crashed through the window right behind me and I wouldn't have even noticed.

Bella.

_Oh, God, what have I done? _

Her face floated in front of my mind. So much pain….

I burned in hell.

Jasper disappeared into the next room. He probably couldn't handle being around me now ….. not now …..

Alice sat me down carefully on a bed, and then settled herself close beside me. "_Edward_, she thought slowly, cautiously. I couldn't ….. _Edward, I need you to look at me, please. I know that you're upset, but please, just look at me."_

I didn't want to look at her…I didn't want to see anything of beauty, not anything of comfort. I knew that Bella's tortured form would just be superimposed over Alice's face anyway. Why should I ask Alice to share in my misery? I knew that to look in my eyes would be to burn along with me.

Alice's gentle fingers found my chin, and I couldn't work up the energy to fight her as she turned my face toward hers. She winced when our eyes met, no doubt being burned by the flames, but she spoke anyway. "Edward, I can't imagine how you feel right now. I know how I feel, and that's more than I can bear. I know you must be suffering even more than I am. But you've got to focus for just a little while, Edward. If we're going to get Bella out of there safely, we have to plan. Can you help me with this, Edward? I can't do it by myself, and Bella needs both of us. She's going to need everything we have to give if we're going to pull her through this."

"It won't be enough," I whispered. "No matter what we have, it's over. It's worse than twilight…it's the night. I've killed her. Alice, I've worse than killed her. I've taken her soul away, just not in the way I always knew I would. I wish I had turned her now…at least then she would still be with me. Bella's gone…she's lost…"

"She may be lost, but we can still hope to find her. What is it with you and souls, Edward?"Alice demanded angrily."You have a soul of your own, you know, and you just keep doing your best to rip it apart. Forget souls, Edward, and hear me now. _Bella is still in there somewhere. _She may be deep inside herself, but she's there. We can find her, I know it, but never question whether she has a soul or not to me again. Someone like Bella can never lose her soul. Nothing and no one can take it away from her. It's hers to keep and hers alone to give."

Whether she was right or not, I knew that I had to try to keep myself together, if only just to help Alice in whatever plan she had. She had a point. If anyone was capable of retaining their own soul in hell, it was Bella.

"All right," I agreed heavily. "I'll try to focus. Tell Jasper to come back in…I'll … I'll do my best to keep from hurting him. I owe him that much."

Before I'd even finished saying it, Jasper was sitting across from Alice and I on the other bed. _Thanks_, he thought at me in relief. _That's a little better_. He turned next to his wife. "What's the plan, Alice?"

My sister held up a clipboard and handed it to Jasper. "I was able to swipe this from the nurses' station. It's Bella's medical profile and all the instructions from her doctor about her care. We'll get her complete file when we get her out tomorrow…make that tonight," she said, glancing down quickly at her watch and seeing that it was after midnight. "But at least from this, we have a general idea of when nurses will be scheduled to check on her, and what it's going to take to get her out of there."

Jasper took the pad from Alice and quickly scanned its pages, his keen eyes missing nothing. When he had taken a look at all of the pages, he said capably, "It says that she has a feeding tube in. Edward, do you know how to remove that? And the IV?"

I nodded. Those were some of the things I'd helped Carlisle to do when we'd worked together on the non-bloody patients when I'd been through medical school. Neither task was terribly difficult. I shuddered as I imagined a tube being stuck deep inside Bella and worked to refocus my mind on the task at hand.

"I'm going to call Carlisle and tell him to be ready for us," Alice said, shooting a questioning look at me. "Did you know that they're in a new house now, Edward? It's still in Alaska, but on the other side of the state from the Denali coven. Close enough for visits, but far enough away to keep the humans from getting suspicious. Anyway," she shrugged, "Carlisle can have everything prepared for our arrival. I'm sure Esme will be glad to know that Edward's coming home, too."

"I'll call the airport," I said quietly, trying my best to think of what we would need to have in place for the escape. "I'll arrange for a small engine plane to be fueled and ready to go on the tarmac. If I grease enough palms, we shouldn't have any problems getting cleared for take-off immediately. Jasper can fly us to Alaska—that way we don't need to deal with the middle man." Jasper was a good pilot. Not as good as me, of course, but I expected to be busy during the flight. Hopefully talking to Bella…maybe she would wake up once she was out of that place and in my arms again…

Focus, Edward.

Alice was nodding in approval of my plan. "Good. _Be sure that the plane is stocked with any medical supplies that we might need for Bella along the way."_

I cast her my most withering look. Thoughts or not, I knew better than to forget something as important as medical supplies. I wasn't exactly young anymore.

"_I know that you'd already thought of that, I just wanted to make sure_," Alice thought in hasty defense of herself. "Jasper, you'll be waiting with the car at the hospital. Edward and I will bring Bella out, and then we'll get to the airport and be in the air as soon as possible." Having Jasper in the room while I was removing tubes and wires from Bella was an accident waiting to happen, and we all knew it without saying.

"But how are we going to explain Bella's empty bed?" Jasper wanted to know. Planning things like this was like an elaborate chess game to him—he always tried to spot the holes in the opposing team's defenses as well as in his own. The tendency could be annoying, but it had saved us more than once from detection by the authorities. "I don't like the idea of Renee and Charlie's panic when they find out she's gone. They'll always be wondering where their daughter went, and that's very cruel after…" he glanced swiftly at me, "…I mean, after what they've been through these past few months."

After considering that for a moment, a thought struck me. "I think I might have an idea about that—it would be the best scenario for all involved. Alice?" I said, glancing at her for affirmation.

Her eyes glazed over as she searched the future for clues, and then she nodded at me again. "I like it. It'll work. Well done, Edward." She tossed a slightly evil grin over at her husband. "Jazz? Do you have those empathic abilities of yours warmed up? I think you'll find that you're going to need them."

"They're ready whenever you want them, Alice, as always," Jasper confirmed, looking both pleased to be needed and irritated at being out of the loop. "Am I going to need fear or persuasion or both?"

"Both, I think," Alice said thoughtfully, tapping her chin with one of her long fingers as she tilted her head. "Yes, definitely both."

I stood up, and the other two looked at me expectantly for instructions. "This idea changes everything—it'll be harder on the front end, but better when we go to get her out. We won't have to deal with security at all, and Charlie and Renee will have answers that'll give them some peace, maybe even comfort. Let's get moving," I ordered, feeling like the leader once again. It was slightly comforting. "Bella needs us."

……………………………………………………………………………………………....

That morning, an extremely handsome doctor met Renee in Bella's room. Renee looked up in surprise as he stood quietly in the doorway. "Mrs. Dwyer, I'm a colleague and personal friend of Dr. Coleman, Isabella's primary physician. She has asked me to speak with you about your daughter's case," Jasper said smoothly as he grasped Renee's hand cordially. "My name is Dr. Elias Bowman."

"Dr. Bowman," Renee said easily as her face smoothed in reaction to the calm that had quickly permeated the room, "It's a pleasure to meet you. Please, sit down."

I was sitting outside in the car, and I could hear every word and thought that each of them had. Renee was feeling hopeful…this doctor seemed very smart and kind. Maybe Dr. Coleman had had him brought in to help Bella!

But as for Jasper…I felt myself gasping with burning pain as I interpreted his thoughts. He tried his best to hide them from me, but that isn't easily done.

"_It's like empty space…"_ he thought blearily as he glanced quickly at Bella's prone form on the narrow bed. "_It's like she isn't even there. I'm not getting anything from her at all. My God … She's so thin…I'm not even tempted by her…"_

I struggled to pull myself out of my misery. I would have plenty of time for self-recrimination later. Right now, convincing Renee to see what we wanted her to see was far more important.

"Why don't we go down the hall to the visitor's lounge?" Jasper suggested instead. "It will be much more comfortable there, and we won't disturb Isabella that way." Renee agreed willingly enough, and when they arrived at the lounge, Jasper pulled a chair near to Renee's and gazed into her face steadily. "Mrs. Dwyer, I'm sure that this has been a very trying time for you. I understand that you and your daughter were quite close prior to her…difficulties?"

"Yes," Renee murmured. "All I want is for my little girl to get well again."

"That is all I want as well." I knew he was telling the truth. So did Renee. She gazed at him with thankful eyes. "Mrs. Dwyer, I must be completely honest with you about your daughter's condition."

"I'd rather know what's really going on than be left uninformed," Renee said, even as she winced at the thought of what Jasper might tell her. "What do you think of my daughter's case, Dr. Bowman?"

"She's not doing well, Mrs. Dwyer. I feel that if something isn't done soon, Isabella will not be with us for very much longer." Tears began to run down Renee's cheeks, but I knew from her thoughts that she'd realized this fact for herself some time ago. "Dr. Coleman has told me of all that they've tried to do to keep Isabella's health intact, but I get the distinct impression that Isabella does not _want_ to be helped," Jasper continued. "_And she doesn't. If she did, I would feel that,_"he added to himself."Dr. Coleman feels that she is running out of treatment options. She has exhausted every resource to no avail. She simply does not know how to help Isabella."

"Bella," Renee corrected automatically through her grief. "We call her Bella."

"Forgive me," said Jasper. "I'll be sure to do the same in the future. In any case, that is why Dr. Coleman has called me in to evaluate Bella. I'm a specialist in the field, Mrs. Dwyer, and I have been actively working to develop new techniques to bring catatonic patients out of themselves and restore them to their former lives and families."

Renee's head snapped up. "You think you might be able to help Bella, Dr. Bowman? Is there any hope for her?" Even Renee's thoughts were more attentive, albeit more desperate. "_Oh, please say yes. Please have a miracle."_

"There is always hope," Jasper said fiercely, challenging Renee … and me. "However, it might involve some changes on your part."

"Money is of no object," said Renee. "We're willing to pay any amount to get Bella back. I would sell my soul for her."

Me, too. If I had one, that is.

"Fortunately, neither money nor your soul are necessary," said Jasper with obvious compassion. "_You two would get along_," he thought at me. "Thanks to the funding of several extremely generous donors, I am able to run a facility that is of no financial burden to my patients' families. We are closely monitored by the American Psychiatric Association, and all of our patients receive the absolute top quality of care. Because money is of no concern to us, Mrs. Dwyer, we are able to spend the optimum amount of time with the patients and provide the very best of therapy and cutting edge technology. I can't offer you any guarantees, ma'am, but I can say that I am extremely hopeful that with a good amount of time and lots of the right kind of care, we can see some amount of improvement in Bella."

Jasper began to flood Renee with overwhelming feelings of trust, hope, and eagerness. "However, Mrs. Dwyer, you would have to give us some time to work exclusively with Bella. A case as progressed as Bella's will take drastic measures to reverse. We need to time to counsel with her, and to help her through her feelings of guilt and rage before any reminders of her trauma were brought to her. If she were to see you at a critical point in her therapy, it could cause her to regress back into this unhappy condition, and we might never get her back then. It's an incredibly difficult ailment to try and reverse, and we must act in as delicate a manner as possible." He gazed deeply into Renee's eyes with his own honey eyes, and I could see that this unsettled her a little. "You wouldn't be able to see your daughter for a few months at least."

Renee balked some at that, but Jasper kept sending her hopeful feelings while simultaneously having himself be seen as appealing and trustworthy in her eyes. After a brief war within herself, she spoke up. "I would hate that," Renee finally said honestly, "but the separation, no matter how long it was, would be worth it if I could see Bella return to herself again. Any price would be worth it. I know she's….she's dying now. I have to stop it. I'll help my baby however I can."

I nearly started at Bella's mother's next thoughts—they were so close to my own when I'd started this whole mess. "_I've got to help her. I'll do anything to help her. Even if the only way I can help is to leave her alone. I just wish I could bear it all for her…"_

Jasper smiled. "I'm glad that you see it that way, Mrs. Dwyer. The support of her family could make all the difference for Bella's recovery. If you were willing to undergo this estrangement, painful though it might be, I think it would exponentially increase her chances for healing. However, I must, again, warn you that even I might not be able to help your daughter. Some damage is just too deep."

"_I hope it's not the truth in this case…but I can't be sure…"_ Jasper thought privately. I wish he hadn't.

"I understand, Dr. Bowman," Renee said wryly. "Don't worry, I won't sue you. You aren't a car salesman, and I know that there are no buy back guarantees. At this point, though, I will grasp at any hope."

"If that is the case, Mrs. Dwyer, the sooner I move Bella under my supervision, the better chance there will be for progress. She's stagnating here and her condition is deteriorating alarmingly, although the people of this establishment have done their very best. Perhaps the change would have a positive influence on her current state of health. May I have your permission to have her transferred this evening? As I said, the sooner the better, ma'am," he added after seeing Renee's slightly panicked look.

Renee looked into space for a long time, deciding. I knew that she was seeing Bella in her mind as she used to be, and I gazed at Bella's face in Renee's memory in longing. The fuzzy human memory was nowhere near as sharp as my own, but Renee remembered a Bella that I had never seen and had always wished to—it was a very young Bella, a beautiful child that only saw joy and life. The Bella of Renee's thoughts was only six or seven years old…then she grew up to how she was just before she had boarded the plane to Forks. This Bella looked nervous, but alive and ready to face something new. How I longed for this Bella to live again.

Could Renee really give up her daughter? How could she not, if it was best for Bella? How could Renee not try anything that might even possibly help her little girl?

"Yes," she finally whispered. "Yes, you may have her transferred." Renee gazed up at Jasper with red eyes. "Please help her, Dr. Bowman. I'm sure my husband and Bella's father will agree with my decision. They love her, too, and I think we all know we're running out of time to save her." She stifled a sob, which she quickly hid behind a cough into her hand. "_She's going to die…my baby is going to leave me here alone if I don't do something. I can't let that happen. I won't! Phil will agree with me…Charlie may not like it, but he knows that she's dying, too. This may be our last chance to save her, and we are _going_ to take it."_

"Thank you for your trust in me, Mrs. Dwyer. You may trust that I will do everything in my power to bring Bella back into the fullness of her former life," Jasper said very softly, kindly.

Handing Renee several glossy pamphlets and a business card, he continued, "Here is all the information on my facility, just in case your husband would like to have confirmation of all that I have told you. The number where you may reach me is on the card as well. I can't promise to always speak with you directly, but one of my assistants will always be very glad to answer any questions you might have, and will also give you regular updates on Bella's progress."

Alice had spent a few hours in the still and darkness of the morning creating those pamphlets, as well as setting up ghost phone numbers and a paper trail. She loved this part of being a vampire, and she had phenomenal skills in forgery. Esme and Carlisle were ready to answer any phone calls that might be placed for the Bowman Facility for Severe Emotional Traumas, and for all that anyone in the world knew, it truly was a real place. Alice had even hacked into a few key governmental databases, and the facility was listed as an APA approved medical clinic. Everything was astonishingly aboveboard for an imaginary place.

I was, again, very, very glad that Alice and Jasper had come down to help me through all this mess—I couldn't have done it on my own with anywhere near the same degree of capability.

That afternoon, Jasper appeared before the board of hospital officials, introducing himself to them as Walter M. Ford, Mr. and Mrs. Dwyer's attorney. I think he was rather enjoying getting to put on a show. Jasper informed the board quite convincingly that Isabella Swan's parents had decided to have their daughter transferred to another facility, a smaller one that was located in Vermont. They felt that the change would be beneficial to her recovery, and that the transfer was in no way a comment on the quality of care that Bella had received at the facility in Miami.

"Mr. Ford" was so charismatic and so appealing that no one even bothered to argue with him for very long. It also helped soothe their feelings that Jasper gave a large donation from the Dwyer and Swan families in order to thank the hospital for all the efforts that they had put into Bella's recovery.

Everything was set. Everything was planned. A two-engine airplane waited, fully fueled and stocked, on a private runway at the airport. Carlisle, Esme, Rosalie and Emmett were ready and waiting for us at the house in Alaska. We hadn't given my family the full story—I didn't want to alarm them. I dreaded seeing them again to a certain degree, but I needed them.

In any case, Bella's family had a story that they could live with easily, one that offered them hope, and a paper trail was already in place for their peace of mind.

Now all that had to be done was to rescue an angel from hell—it was a good thing there were lots of vampires around for the attempt. It was a night for mythical creatures to show their powers, and I ached to show mine, to bring Bella back to me through my own supernatural strength. It didn't matter how many demons tried to keep her from me—we would see who would win.

We would see who was the strongest.

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A/N: My lord! Can't you just hear the hardcore electric guitars being Edward's background music right now? Who's with me with the Iron Man theme? That whole Merchant of Death track? WICKED! Okay, anyway, sorry. I guess I just revealed my antiquity. Do they even say wicked anymore?

So, you guys gave me twenty reviews for the last chapter when I only asked for fifteen. If I get twenty-five reviews this time around, I will name an OC after you, you lucky twenty-fifth reviewer, you. I'll reply to your review and get your name or the name you want me to use. However, if I get _thirty-five_ reviews, the thirty-fifth reviewer will get the ultimate of ultimate prizes: I will write a _short_ Fanfiction (let me make this clear in language I know you'll understand: a oneshot, me hearties, a oneshot) on the Twilight character of your choice. I know. Even I'm drooling over this prize. It won't be epic in length, but I can promise that it will be good. All you have to do is click that button. C'mon, you know you want to. Go for it!


	8. The Banshee

Disclaimer: If I owned Twilight, I would have made Jacob not be a jerk and given him a nice OC to love that was not Bella and Edward's weirdo love child. Obviously, I am not the author of Twilight.

A/N: You guys made me sad this week—only thirteen reviews when the last had gotten twenty-two! What happened? Did you not enjoy it? Weep, weep! So nobody wins the contest this time around, so I'm going to let them stand. Twenty-fifth reviewer of this chapter gets the next chapter dedicated to them, and the thirty-fifth reviewer gets their own oneshot. (Out of the goodness of my heart and because she makes me smile with all of her reviews, I'm currently in the process of writing PrincessFerdinand her own oneshot. She's requested an Angela and Ben fic, something I've never undertaken before but I am therefore looking forward to doing. See? She makes me smile with her faithful and comical reviews and she got a oneshot—go ye therefore and do thou likewise, mateys!)

In this chapter, you're finally going to be getting an idea of what's going on. I hope you enjoy it. By the way, as a head's up, try and read the reviews, especially Bluebird's. She gives a lot of great hints as well as being the little birdie to come up with intellectual points of the story that I'm not smart enough to vocalize in the same sophisticated and downright awesome manner.

This week's playlist is dedicated to Ostentatious Querida for several reasons: 1.) She has an awesome penname which delighted me to no end because I could translate it and also because it reminds me of Meg Cabot's _Mediator _series (a fairly good read for those who are interested). 2.) She likes my taste in music and makes an effort to look up the ones she doesn't know and 3.) She's been really sweet to talk to Bluebird. Anybody who's nice to Bluebird is automatically awesome in my book. Anybody who is NOT nice to Bluebird will be put into a book and then killed in horrible ways. You have been warned.

Anyway, the playlist selection for this chapter is: _Broken_ by Amy Lee & Seether and _Falling Inside the Black_ by Skillet.

Enjoy!

Blessings!

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It was nearing midnight, when everything around us was dark and quiet and caressed by the balmy tropical air, as Jasper pulled the newly bought ambulance smoothly into the hospital's staff parking lot. He shifted the engine into park, and then turned around to face Alice and me in the backseat—they hadn't trusted me to drive, which was probably wise. I'd spent the whole trip trying to keep my mind on the plan and not on my grief, but it hadn't been easy.

"All right," Jasper said with instant authority, the officer in charge of a military covert operation once more as he addressed the troops, "you both know what to do. Get in there, do your jobs, and get this done quickly and efficiently. The less trauma and stress involved in this move, the better it will be for Bella. I'll wait out here in the ambulance." Jasper couldn't risk being seen on the guards' security tapes again, considering the fact that he'd already been in the building today as two different individuals—we didn't think even the humans would be easily fooled again.

Alice closed her eyes for a minute, searching behind her eyelids, and then shuddered minutely as she released her hold on the future. "Everything's going to be fine just as long as we keep to the plan. _That means you, too, Edward,"_ she chirped in her thoughts, obviously trying to make the situation a trifle lighter. _"No random rogue behavior and going off all half-cocked, please."_

I didn't bother to reply—I nodded curtly at my brother and sister, and slid fluidly from the ambulance's cab. I knew the plan, and I sure as hell wasn't going to mess it up, certainly not when the future of Bella's life and sanity was at stake. Even now I was scanning the building for suspicious minds and thoughts. It was odd to look into some of those minds and see thoughts that I saw were either empty or hopelessly confused and troubled. I tried to stay away from the minds of the patients as much as I possibly could—I didn't like to think how close Bella's mind might be to theirs. For the second time in my life, I found myself grateful that I couldn't read her mind.

The first time was in the forest when I was saying good-bye—reading her eyes had been bad enough.

I took up my position at the base of the building and waited for Alice to join me there—she and Jasper were having one of their private-gazing-into-one-another's-eyes moments. Even though she knew as well as I did from her visions that nothing would go wrong, Alice still would never leave Jasper without giving him what she considered to be a proper good-bye.

I envied them. The last good-bye in my memory was…horrific.

Alice joined me a few seconds later, her face stone-like in its calmness.

I removed the gurney from the back of the ambulance, and together Alice and I guided it in. Alice sang sweetly to the receptionist, "Evening. We're here to pick up…" she glanced down at her clipboard for a show of nonchalance, "…Isabella Swan. She's being transferred out of here to another facility."

The receptionist barely looked up from her work—she was mostly thinking about finishing reading a novel on her next break. "I'll need to see the release and transfer papers signed by both her guardian and her primary physician, and I'll also need to make a copy of your i.d.'s for our files."

"No problem," I said smoothly, and handed her everything she'd requested in one neat packet. Fake i.d.'s were certainly nothing new to the Cullen family, and we'd had ours made in next to no time at all. These wouldn't be undergoing nearly the same level of scrutiny as birth certificates or passports, after all. Besides, Renee and Bella's doctors had all signed real release forms under the all too convincing eyes of Jasper, so there was very little to no chance of our charade being compromised.

I barely controlled myself from rolling my eyes, though, when the receptionist got a look at my face and thought blearily to herself, "_Oh, my. Too bad he's just an EMT. Oh my, oh my. I wonder if he's married to the girl? She's certainly pretty enough to attract somebody like that. Drat."_

Although she seemed thoroughly flustered by us, the receptionist was really quite efficient at her job. It took her no more than five minutes by the time we were all checked out, and she was stuttering as she blushed furiously down at her desk, "Just get on the staff elevator straight ahead and go up to the fifth floor. The nurses there will do the rest for you. Have a pleasant evening."

"Thank you for your help," was Alice's courteous reply. I nodded in agreement and turned the gurney toward the elevator, laughing silently as I saw the receptionist fan herself with a sheath of papers as we left her sight. Humans—I took a brief moment to contemplate the receptionist's reaction if she knew that we were really vampires stealing the catatonic love of my life away from the human world.

The outrageously long ride up on the elevator was a silent one. I felt Alice's eyes on me a few times and I studiously avoided her thoughts. I didn't want to know how I looked, or what my future held. I just couldn't face it right now.

When we reached the fifth floor, everything was checked out again by the floor nurses. They offered to help us load Bella onto the stretcher, of course, but Alice and I begged off. The nurses were vaguely baffled by this but they couldn't really argue, considering that Alice and I were citing a non-existent rule of the imaginary Bowman Facility for Severe Emotional Traumas as justification for our actions. The rules, we said with obvious annoyance at the difficulties they brought us, stated that all patients, once they had been accepted into the program, must only be cared for by official Bowman employees. This was supposed to help the facility avoid lawsuits.

In reality, we just didn't want to risk any of the nurses touching our skin and feeling its inevitable deathly chill. Knowing nurses, they'd probably insist that we see a doctor ourselves or something. At this point, we just wanted to get Bella out of there.

One of the nurses I found myself liking a good deal as she helped us process all of the paperwork, and she even readied Bella's medical history file for transfer for us. Her name was Linda. She'd apparently been in charge of a good deal of Bella's care, and had grown to love her over the months. It seemed that Bella's face reminded Linda of her own daughter, a teenager who had died a few years previously from brain cancer.

"I know that this goes completely against regulations," Linda murmured softly to me, "but would it be possible for someone at the facility to let me know when Bella wakes up? I just can't stand the idea of not knowing if…I mean, when she comes back," she said so quietly I almost missed the tears drifting to the corners of her eyes. "_I have to know if she makes it, even though it might hurt to find out she hasn't. It would be like losing Casey again…but I have to know. I have to hope that maybe I did some small amount of good in Bella's life. She's a special girl—just like Casey."_

I felt my own eyes soften as I gazed at her. Her mind told me next that her husband had divorced her after the death of their daughter … he was unable to deal with the painful memories … She'd found more peace helping patients in a mental institution than she had found outside of it … Her work was all she had left, and it caused her heartache to see Bella go away now.

That made two of us.

"If you'll give me your address," I said with a sudden feeling of camaraderie, "I'll send you updates on Bella's condition whenever I get the chance. You have my word—you'll be notified of any changes."

"Thank you," she said, relaxing slightly as she handed me a small card with a generic email address on it.

"No, thank _you_ for all that you've done for her," I said fervently.

Linda gazed piercingly at me, and I was suddenly disconcerted by how much she really _did_ see. She was trained to pick up on emotional signals, no matter how small they were, and there was something in my face and voice that gave her pause. "You say that like you knew Bella … before she got like this, I mean," she said shrewdly. "Did you?"

This was the kind of question I knew very well that I was supposed to glibly lie to and move on. But I couldn't do it…I just couldn't force myself to deceive Linda, not when this poor human woman been lied to by so many other people and left behind by many more … I owed her for her kindness to Bella, and I only had this small way of paying her back.

"Yes," I finally said honestly. "I didn't realize who I had been ordered to pick up, though, until I got here. You won't make trouble for me, will you? This is technically a conflict of interest. I could get fired for breech of protocol."

"I won't tell a soul," she said, and I could tell she meant it both from her thoughts and from her voice. "I'm so glad Bella will have a friend with her up there. It might make all the difference in her recovery."

"I hope so. Oh, God, I hope so."

Linda was called to the bedside of one of her other patients then, and I found that I was sorry to see her go. It was rare to find such a genuinely kind human like that, especially after they'd undergone so much personal grief. I stood still for several moments, thinking. Even when she was in a catatonic state, others could see the beauty of Bella's heart and be drawn to her. It appeared to be inevitable.

However, there was no more time to think about this now. I peeked in through the glass of Bella's door for a moment as I waited for one of the nurses to release the lock. The room was dim. Shadows slashed diagonally across her bed. She was still in the exact same fetal position as she had been last night, stiff and cold. It was eerie.

At the clicking noise of the lock being disengaged, I reached out and quickly opened the door, leading the front part of the gurney into the room with me. Alice came behind me, rolling the back half of the gurney around the narrow doorframe.

A hostile scent hit me as I fully entered the room … cold and strong … yet it was a familiar scent … My muscles tensed for a battle, and I found myself in defensive crouch beside Bella's narrow bed before I was even aware of moving.

Alice sniffed the air, alarmed by my reaction as she, too, caught the scent. She entered the room completely, hurrying to get away from the curious eyes of the nurses. "_Victoria! She's been here, Edward!"_ Alice spat viciously. "_I can smell it! That's her scent, isn't it?"_

I growled low in my throat. "Yes. I don't hear her mind anywhere near us now, though. We'll get Bella out and worry about Victoria later," I ordered tersely. I yearned with everything within me to track down the murderous redhead and finish her off myself that very night … at least I could do that much for Bella. I could make her just a little safer from my world. Victoria was obviously trying to avenge the death of her mate—why else would she have followed Bella so far away from her usual stomping grounds?

Alice immediately pulled some supplies from the medical bag that she carried, getting ready for when I would need them as I prepared Bella for travel. "_We didn't come a moment too soon," _she thought, distractedly_. "Victoria must have smelled our scent in here and run off before we could come back and catch her. I don't know how I missed seeing her, though—she must not have been planning to hurt Bella just yet."_ Alice's thoughts were worried, and slightly apologetic for having missed this most important development. "I wonder how she knew to work around my visions. How could she have possibly known?" she murmured aloud, her voice trailing away.

My fingers blurring with the speed of my motions, I was already working to remove the heart monitors from Bella's body. "Laurent is still living with the Denali coven, isn't he?" I snarled through clenched teeth. "He's probably not above doing an old friend a favor."

"Yes," Alice said, startled into motionlessness for half a second. "You're right, Edward. That has to be it. Carlisle talked to Eleazar yesterday…apparently, Laurent and Irina have become, well, friendly, even though he's still having trouble with the whole vegetarian ideal. But you're right—he'd see nothing wrong with giving Victoria some information if she asked for it.

"We'll have to call Tanya and warn her about Laurent. They'll need to watch him closely, especially after this. The last thing we need is for Laurent and Victoria to cause trouble for Kate, Irina, and the rest. Irina won't like it, though." Alice winced at the thought as she said it—we both knew that Irina could have a dreadful temper if someone insulted her family, and if Laurent was her mate…it could mean tension between our families. That would be a shame if it did indeed occur. We'd been close for many years.

My only answer was a preoccupied nod—I had carefully removed the intruding IV from Bella's delicate wrist, and had bandaged up the small wound. A tiny, hopeful part of my mind rejoiced at the fact that the few drops of blood that had come from the miniscule slit in her skin didn't seem to bother me at all.

But here was the part that I had dreaded the most of this entire rescue plan—the removal of the feeding tube. I was hideously afraid of hurting Bella even more, and I'd only seen this done a few times before.

Carefully, gently, trying to emulate Carlisle's compassionate ways with the humans he cared for, I removed the tube from Bella's throat. During the procedure, my silent heart moved uneasily in my chest when her eyelids fluttered opened. Bella had been awakened by my movements, but her empty eyes didn't move at all once her eyelids moved up toward her forehead. She didn't even seem to care that I was pulling a tube out of her body.

Alice moaned so softly when she looked into those dark, haunted eyes for the first time that even I barely heard her. Her thoughts were stilted and painful.

"I know…" I said heavily, trying desperately to keep my mind on the task at hand. "I know." My throat constricted tightly. I couldn't speak.

Putting a small hand on my shoulder, Alice whispered in my ear, "It's going to be all right, Edward. I know it."

"How do you know? Can you _see_ that it will be, Alice?" I asked her intensely.

"No…" Alice's voice was very slow and cautious, as if she was afraid of causing any misunderstanding. She closed her lips and spoke with her thoughts, probably trying to keep from getting attention from the nurses in the hall or Bella in this quiet little room._ "But I think that's just because Bella isn't making any decisions for herself right now. The absolute moment that she does, though, you know I'll tell you. It'll mean that she's coming back to us."_

We didn't speak any more as we swiftly prepared Bella's frail body for the transfer. Alice swathed her best friend in thick blankets, and slipped warm socks over Bella's cold feet, taking off the absurd hospital booties that someone had put on her. "I wish they hadn't cut her hair off like that," Alice mourned, breaking the silence as she ran a gentle hand through Bella's sad, shorn locks. "It's going to take forever to grow back as long as it was before. She's going to hate that."

"That's the least of our worries right now, Alice," I snapped, irritated at how she seemed to be concentrating on the trivialities. "Hair length is irrelevant."

Alice's eyes were suddenly kindled with a hot, golden fire. I found myself stepping back a small pace toward Bella—a reaction to the danger that Alice presented. "Don't you think I _know_ that, Edward?" she hissed at me. "Please do me the courtesy of allowing me to dwell on something a trifle lighter than the issue of whether my best friend in the world will ever be more than a limp vegetable or not! This is very like watching my own past unfold before my eyes. Forgive me if I'm having a little bit of emotion over here. I promise to not let my trivial distresses interfere with your precious plans."

I winced, even as the unwanted images of what Alice feared might come to pass flooded my brain. "I'm sorry, Alice. That was inconsiderate of me."

"Apology accepted," she said, though still a little icily. I knew that she'd forgive me…eventually. Maybe in a century or two. If I was very, very lucky. "Come on. Let's get out of here," she added, not looking at me.

Because she was still curled up so tight, it took a little maneuvering to pick Bella up so that she wouldn't be jostled overmuch by my motions. She didn't make a sound or move, though, as we settled her on the gurney and strapped her down for appearance's sake—Alice and I were both fast enough to catch her if she should fall off the narrow bed. I guessed that I should be grateful that I didn't have to worry about her going into hysterics, but I would have welcomed a few screams or tears right about now.

It all seemed to be far too easy a breakout—a few lies, a paper trail, a gurney and an ambulance, and Bella was taken, quite legally, from the hospital and back where she belonged. Shouldn't it be harder than this?

_Ah, Edward_, I thought to myself. _The hard part is still to come._

Jasper sat waiting in the driver's seat of the ambulance, the engine already puttering loudly. I nearly smiled as I saw him roll his eyes at the noise. Alice popped open the back doors for me as I slid in Bella's gurney before she danced up to take her place beside Jasper. "Floor it, Jasper," she said easily. "Mission accomplished. Let's get her home to Carlisle."

As we drove, I carefully undid the straps that held Bella stationary on the gurney and pulled her into the safe haven of my lap. I was drawn to her through some strange magnetic force, and I could no longer stand for her to be out of my arms.

I then experienced the first moment of happiness to have entered my life since the day Jasper attacked Bella on her birthday party as I cradled her against my chest. We were together again, even though this certainly wasn't how I would have planned our reunion. But we _were_ together now, and somehow I would find a way to help her. I would bring her out of this state no matter what the cost would be. My stomach churned as I looked down at her blank face, but I felt hope that with love and care, she would be my Bella again.

Jasper's shoulders relaxed noticeably as he merged smoothly onto the Florida highway, and I knew that he was grateful to have my feelings lighten a bit. I probably hadn't been all that pleasant to be around lately.

As the streetlights from the freeway flashed in increments overhead, I saw Bella's eyelids begin to drift slowly down toward her hollow cheeks. "That's right, sweetheart," I murmured lovingly to her. "Go on to sleep. Everything will be all right, I promise. Just go to sleep, love, and I'll be here when you wake." A minute later I knew from her breathing that she had entered her sleep cycle. Her breathing was still just as steady and light as it always was, but I knew Bella's sleeping body well, from all of the countless nights I'd spent at her side. I rejoiced to be back here again, to be back in this familiar and reassuring role of protector and comforter.

Alice and Jasper were finalizing plans in soft whispers when all sound stopped in the cavernous ambulance for the tiniest of seconds—all sound except one. Deep in sleep, Bella was making a noise for the first time.

It wasn't the talking that I had missed so much. It wasn't even an involuntary snore. No, the sound was a wordless, high moan – keening. It wasn't very loud, but it pierced. It sent icy shudders down my spine and my body went rigid with panic and loss.

Just as I finished registering this for myself, though, the unwieldy vehicle swerved dangerously near the edge of an overpass. "Jasper!" Alice screeched, quickly reaching a steadying hand to the steering wheel. "Jasper, what is it?"

Jasper was clutching his head in the vice of his hands, gasping so hard that it was almost hyperventilation. "Alice…I feel _something_ from her…but it's so foreign, it's almost not _her_ at all…I feel pain and…and devastation. She's dreaming…but she's so _alone_…so lonely…lonely…" He mumbled incoherently, unable to control himself. He sounded as if he were being tortured.

As Jasper finished speaking, the emotions that he was feeling emanating from Bella began to be registered in his brain, and I started to experience them as well. It was as if I was suddenly choking. My vision went black. There was no light. There was no love. There was only loneliness and a deep desire to die … to escape it all …

Pain…

Regret…

Longing…

Oblivion…

And underlying it all …. worthlessness…

"Oh, God," I gasped, curling myself around Bella's stiff body, aching to comfort her. "Is that what she's really feeling?"

"No. Hers is worse. Far worse," Jasper said, shudder after shudder shaking his frame and rattling his teeth. "That's only a very faint echo of it that you're getting. I'm experiencing it all, though; my brain can't hold that…that sorrow…I can bear it, I can't…" His voice broke off into a penetrating scream of pain. "Make it stop!" he pleaded pitifully. The ambulance shuddered and swerved. I barely noticed as Jasper screamed again.

"Jasper," Alice said, her calm voice slicing through the cacophony of Jasper's gasps, my shudders … and Bella's wordless, weak sobs. "Jasper, if you don't pull over in the next twenty seconds, we're going to crash. I won't be able to stop it."

"I can't…I can't do it…" Jasper panted.

"Fifteen seconds. Do it now, Jasper, or she's dead," Alice ordered, glaring furiously at Jasper. "We're going to fly off the road and hit the embankment. Edward won't be able to protect her properly. He can't think well enough."

Jasper was immobilized. I was immobilized.

"Pull over right now, Jasper Whitlock. _Now!_"

The ambulance moved and pitched a little more, but miraculously remained upright. I truly don't know how Jasper did it, but somehow, we were suddenly safely stopped on the side of the freeway. Jasper was still frozen in the driver's seat, his head in his hands. I was rubbing Bella's back frantically, to no avail.

With one tiny hand, Alice yanked Jasper out of the driver's seat and placed him safely on the passenger side. "Edward," she said quietly, "you've got to try to find a way to calm her down. _I'll_ get us to the airport." She then slid into the driver's position, scooted the seat forward at least a foot, and sent us shooting off again down the freeway.

All the while, Bella's soft, horrible keening filled the car and our minds and our memories. We would never be rid of it…I wished I could wipe it from my brain…

Jasper didn't speak again for the rest of the ride, but I could see from his haggard face that he was in abject misery.

Desperately, I tried to calm Bella's fear and desolation. I stroked her hair, rubbed her back, talked quietly to her. Nothing helped. Finally, I began to softly hum her lullaby—it had never failed to calm her before.

It failed now.

In my arms I held a small, human woman that was thoroughly acquainted with an ache that I would have paid any price to keep from her. I knew from experiencing her feelings through Jasper that they were every bit as strong as the vampire emotions that I'd held over her head so many times. Who knew that a human body could hold it in? Who knew that a human heart could feel so strongly?

That was the problem, I realized then. It couldn't. Bella's mind had already failed her, sending her into the only protection that she was allowed to seek, and her body was only a few steps behind. I could not have found a crueler way to kill her if I'd really tried. First I'd plunged her into fire with my abandonment, and then I'd made her promise to take care of herself, thus preventing her from seeking even death's release.

There was only one thing that offered me any hope—somewhere inside this body was a person that could still _feel_. She felt a horrible, blasphemous misery, certainly, but deep inside Bella was the Bella that could still have emotions. She _was_ in there—all we had to do was bring her out again. Surely, with Carlisle's help, we could do that much. We just had to figure out a way to replace the pain.

But a tiny, hesitant part of my mind asked me caustically a few questions. _What could possibly help her when even her lullaby has no effect at all on her? What can reach her when that didn't?_

We kept driving to the airport. We must have been an odd group—there was a banshee in the ambulance as well as three very frightened vampires, vampires who did not know how to fight _this_ version of a living death.

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A/N: You know the rewards. Get to it! Hit the button! Take the red pill!


	9. Chemical Reaction

Disclaimer: If I owned anything of Stephenie's Meyer's, I could be flirting with Kellan and Peter on the _New Moon_ set this very minute. I am not flirting; I am, in fact, on my way out the door to another horrendous Spanish class. Ergo, there is no owning on my end and if you sue me for ownership, you will look extremely foolish. Which would make me laugh my butt off, so you know what? Go ahead and sue. I could use some entertainment.

A/N: SORRY SORRY SORRY! Here's the next chapter, folks. Y'all have done your parts; you reviewed. I did not deliver. I offer my _profound_ apologies. In between finals, choir auditions, birthdays and illnesses, it's just not been a few happy weeks. However, I hope you won't mind the wait with this lovely addition to _Ivy Tree! _This chapter is dedicated to JMaire, the 25th reviewer of the last chapter (PrincessFerdinand, you missed by only one review…weep!)! Everybody clap now! Rewards for this chapter will be below.

Honestly, though, the award nearly went Aragorininme just for the name alone. We (PixiePrincess88, Bluebird and myself, to clarify) laughed our butts off at that one. Well done! You rock for having the best username EVER!

Oh, and I'm putting in an unashamed plug for OstentatiousQuerida's story "Ambiguity" now. Read it. That's an order. She's making me Team Jasper, and I didn't think anybody could ever yank me away from the yumminess that is Carlisle.

So anyway, here's the next chapter and let me tell you folks, it was MASSIVE to write. It's sixteen freakin' pages on Word, so I hope you've eaten your wheaties!

Playlist: _To Make You Feel My Love_ by Garth Brooks (I know, Bluebird, you're rolling your eyes right now…but what can I say? I love it!) and _Never Too Late_ by Three Days Grace.

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Alice heaved a huge sigh of relief as the cavernous stone house I'd never seen with my own eyes before seen came into view. "We made it," she breathed. Her tiny fingers relaxed from their crippling grip around the steering wheel, and the lines from between her eyebrows disappeared.

Ordinarily I would have made some kind of sarcastic remark about her having known that for herself all along, but I was too grateful for the same fact to question it. Besides, I really didn't need to be teasing Alice when I knew very well that she had saved all of our lives and sanities on this long trip home. Someday, I would have to find a way to repay her, but all I could do now was offer my thanks.

I cleared my throat roughly as Alice drove up the grand circular driveway of the new house. "Alice…" How to say this? How to convey how much I meant these words? Without sounding like a complete and total shmuck at the same time? "I want to thank you…. I truly don't know what I would have done without you and Jasper there with me. I would have bungled the whole thing, messed everything up yet again. You didn't have to come, but you did anyway…."

"Of course I had to come," Alice said in a carefully cheerful tone. "I had a vision of you trying to break Bella out of there on your own—suffice it to say that there were lots of sirens and police and construction workers headaches involved, not to mention an orderly with a concussion he didn't really deserve. You got her out in the end, sure, but it certainly wasn't nearly as sophisticated a plan as mine."

"Nothing is more sophisticated than you," I reminded her.

"I know," she agreed easily.

Jasper was silent.

The moment my Volvo, which had been left for us in the airport parking lot by Emmett, had come to a gentle halt, Carlisle was standing outside the car and opening the passenger door. "_Welcome home, son,"_ his thoughts said genuinely to me. "_You've been missed."_ He looked through the doorway at me, and the tenor of his thoughts changed instantaneously to surprise and dismay while his face became rigidly inscrutable. "_Bella! Edward… what have we done?"_

I winced visibly. As much as I appreciated the fact that he seemed to take what he felt was his equal share of blame, I knew very well that the disaster I held protectively in my arms was my responsibility, and mine alone. She had always been my responsibility, for better or for worse. Carlisle had never contested my rights when it came to Bella's care, and it was more than good of him now to try and take the burden of her condition partly on himself. Especially when we both knew that he didn't deserve it.

In my father's thoughts, I saw myself getting slowly out of the car, being mindful of every tiny motion of my body. In my arms swayed the stiff, apparently lifeless, body of Bella Swan. Her skin looked like cotton stretched across twigs… I was horrified at her wraithlike body….

Carlisle's trained, clinical mind was already taking stock of his patient—her slow, indifferent heartbeat, her deathly pallor, her painful thinness, her sunken and bruised eyes, her wilted limbs. He held up a picture of the healthy, beautiful Bella that he had last seen in Forks on the night of her eighteenth birthday next to an image of the girl as she was now, and it was a hideous comparison. Carlisle looked into Bella's eyes, her dark, joyless eyes, and was horrified as he had not been horrified in years.

The noisy slam of a door jolted me from my reverie, and I looked up to see Alice tenderly escorting an extremely shell-shocked Jasper up the steps that led into the house. Alice's slender arm was around Jasper's waist, and he leaned heavily on her for her support. "Alice?" Carlisle called softly after her, his eyes darting back and forth. He was looking torn in the decision as to which child he should take care of first. "What's wrong with Jasper? Do you need me?"

She glanced back at us, and then looked meaningfully at Bella. "He'll be all right in a bit, Carlisle. Don't worry. It was a rough ride," was all she said as she swiftly led her husband away. I hoped that Jasper was still aware enough to feel the apology in my feelings—he'd suffered nearly has much as I had during the last few hours, caught between my feelings and Bella's tortured moans.

Finally, Carlisle forced himself to look at Bella and me again. His face was branded by its usual serenity, but his thoughts were pained by the sight of our suffering. "_Let's get her inside, Edward_," Carlisle thought, beckoning toward the house. "_I'd like to read her medical files and conduct an exam. I need to get an understanding of what it is that we're facing here exactly."_

Obediently, I started to climb the steps up to the house when I felt a familiar and much longed-for mind approaching us fast. "Oh, no," I whispered, caught in the maelstrom of longing and caution. "Carlisle, Esme's coming out to talk to you. I don't want her to see this—it would kill her. We need a little time first, to prepare her." It pained me to consider Esme when she saw her surrogate daughter again…her heart was so soft. How would the compassionate Esme bear it?

Immediately understanding the situation, Carlisle moved swiftly to intercept his wife, but Esme was too fast for him. She appeared at the front door, her brow wrinkled in vexation and concern. "Carlisle, something's wrong with Jasper and Alice said…"

Esme's gentle and worried voice trailed off as she caught sight of my face around Carlisle's body as he sought to put his arms around her, to restrain her from going any further. She hadn't seen Bella yet. "Edward!" my mother cried out piercingly, a heartbreaking joy spreading across her face. "_Oh, Edward, you're finally home! Thank God!"_ Esme leapt around Carlisle with all the grace of a doe…and nearly fell down the steps as she literally halted in midair. All conscious thought fled her mind, as the agony of a mother swept through her body, an agony of the kind of strength she hadn't felt in many, many years, and never as a vampire.

"Hi, Mom," I said weakly. What else could I say? _Gee, Mom, I'm sorry that you have to see the pitiful creature that your apparently perfect son has worse than killed? Oh yeah, and Mom, she's just in a catatonic state. She hasn't starved to death…yet. _

"Esme, go inside for now, please," Carlisle ordered kindly, but firmly. "We need to get Bella cleaned up and comfortable. She'll look better then…she's exhausted by the trip. I promise that you can see both her and Edward later."

Numbly, Esme obeyed her husband's request, even though I knew that I would have to face her and her questions later. I shuddered to think of the content of that conversation, of the condemnation that I would see in her eyes.

"Didn't she know?" I asked, having been unable to find the answer in Esme's thoughts. "Didn't you warn her that we would be coming back like this?"

"She knew Bella wasn't doing well and was in a hospital, and that you, Alice and Jasper had gone to get her out. I don't think she realized how bad it really was, though," Carlisle said, avoiding my eyes. "I don't know that any of us realized. Not even me. I thought that it would all end up being just one giant misunderstanding. I never even dreamed that this was possible…not for _Bella._"

Join the club.

"Where are Rosalie and Emmett?" was my next question, even while asking it I was searching for their minds in the vicinity. The last thing I needed at the moment was another stunned family member on my hands—especially Rosalie.

"They're out hunting, and should be gone for a few more hours," Carlisle assured me. "I thought it would be for the best."

"Thank you," I said fervently. "Rosalie would probably throw a statue at my head or something if she saw me right now. The emo vampire, back home again with his little human pet in tow to cause lots of turmoil and angst in her perfectly ordered life. A statue might be too tame for her, come to think of it…."

"I don't know if I see eye to eye with you about that being her likely reaction," Carlisle disagreed mildly. "She's missed you more than you know."

I openly scoffed at the idea of Rosalie missing _me_ very much, but I passed into the house without further comment. The new Cullen place was decorated much like our house back in Forks had been—pale, bright colors on the walls, lots of windows, a massive stone fireplace, fine furnishings. None of it held any beauty or comfort for me at the moment. Bella's open eyes didn't react to the change of light, didn't glance around the room at all. She might as well have been frozen.

Carlisle led me through the living room, down a hall, and into a large room that I saw was set up as his study. The room was even big enough to house a few pieces of medical equipment and a hospital bed. "_Alice saw that we would need these at the new house, although she didn't know why_," Carlisle informed me, even though I hadn't asked. "_We bought this house with this room specifically in mind. There's another room down the hall that's nearly as large as this. We thought that it would be a good place for all of your music paraphernalia—your piano's already there, waiting for you."_

I was thankful for how much thought my family had obviously put into my preferences during the process of choosing this house, even though I certainly hadn't been overcautious about their feelings lately. Too bad music was the absolute furthest thing from my mind at the moment.

Correction—an amoeba named Mike Newton was lower than music, but only just.

Gingerly, I placed Bella on the examining table that was stood against the wall while Carlisle began his preliminary examination. He didn't speak, but I heard his thoughts easily enough as we worked together with the quietude born of a long partnership and perfect understanding. "_No reaction to light," _he thought in his practical, ordered way, trying to keep his emotions detached from the situation as much as he could. "_Minimal reflexes…slow heartbeat and breathing…extensive muscle loss...extremely emaciated…severe, infected bedsores…how did it come to this?"_

Like I said, he tried.

Countless ultrasounds, x-rays, and bone density scans later, Carlisle and I were finally able to give Bella a sponge bath, clean her grimy hair, and bandage her bedsores. Carlisle reinserted her IV, but said he wanted to hold off on a feeding tube for the moment. Once we had settled her on the bed, swathed in blankets, Bella looked a miniscule amount better than she had. She was still huddled in the same curled position with her legs pressed against her chest—she absolutely refused to be manipulated out of it. That had made the whole ultrasound thing interesting. But the pale blue blankets hid her thinness, and she was neater in a soft cotton nightgown that Esme had left on the bed when she'd heard that Bella was coming with us.

I dragged an armchair over to her bedside and sat down, running my fingers rhythmically through Bella's hair. "So?" I asked Carlisle, the tension discernable in my voice. "What do you think?" I was afraid to look in his mind directly for answers, afraid of what I might find there.

He held up a finger. "_Give me a little bit of time, Edward, please. I still want to study her medical records and have a chance to observe Bella's condition for myself. I don't want to give you any false information, son. At this point, let's just be grateful that we're all together again, all right? The rest will come as it will._"

Carlisle sat down with a sigh in his rolling leather chair, and pulled Bella's several inches thick medical file toward him. He flipped the cover of the manila folder and lifted the top paper, before peering distractedly at me over its edge when I made no sign of moving. "_I have everything well in hand here, Edward_," smiling as he thought the blatantly obvious. "_Bella's safe, clean, and medicated. She'll probably sleep for a fair while. Would you mind going and talking to your mother for a few minutes? She must be terribly concerned about the situation, and she's missed you terribly."_

I looked longingly at Bella's prone form on the bed, but I knew that I owed my father that much of a favor. Carlisle didn't like it when I hovered, listening to his every thought before he had a chance to modify it for accuracy. Not to mention the fact that I'd missed Esme, too—I'd put her through a lot in the past year. "All right," I said, trying to hide my unwillingness as I ran a hand through my hair in impatience. "Call me if you find anything or if there's any change."

"You know I will, Edward. After all," Carlisle said with a gleam in his golden eyes, "you're just a thought away."

My smile was brittle as I acknowledged our old idiotic joke from my own newborn days, but it was a smile nonetheless. I kissed Bella's cold brow, and then forced myself to walk from the room.

Esme's thoughts, which were still halting from her shock and very painful for me to hear, were coming from her garden outside. Her garden was always the first place to get set up whenever we moved to a new house after the bedrooms—it was her getaway, the place where she could go and think and find some peace. As my piano was for me, so was the garden for Esme. It was easy to understand that the garden was where Esme would be now in this time of crisis.

I followed her delicate, flowery scent to the backyard. That was where I saw her sitting, completely motionless, on the bench in the antique white gazebo that she'd trained vines, honeysuckle, and roses to climb. The roses' heady perfume swirled around me, even though it was nothing more than silage compared to Bella's intoxicating scent.

Esme's honey eyes watched me closely as I crossed the lawn and then sat down beside her. She studied my every movement minutely, very much as if she were afraid I might disappear from her sight again. The silence was thick, and I knew that she was waiting for me to speak first. Great.

"Hi, Mom," I said again, for lack of a better phrase.

Taking even me by surprise, Esme's arms had suddenly flung themselves around me in an iron grip. "Never, ever, _ever_ even _consider_ doing that to me again, Edward. You are never to just up and leave without a word again, no matter what the circumstances are. I cannot watch another child disappear from my sight again. _Do you hear me?_" she growled. I'm not sure how she snarled while she was sobbing so hard that she was shaking the gazebo, but she managed it beautifully.

A long forgotten memory swam to the surface of my mind, then, a memory that somehow hadn't disappeared completely during the passing decades. The picture in my head was grainy and vague, but I knew immediately what it was. In the memory I was collapsed on the ground, my head in my human mother's lap as I cried bitterly over having found a dead bird in the road on my way home from school. "It was so beautiful," I wailed. "Its feathers were so dark…why did it have to die, Mother?"

"I know, Edward. It's always sad when beauty dies," Elizabeth crooned as she stroked my hair. It felt so good, and I savored the memory now. I looked up into my mother's green eyes, so much like mine. "That's why we must try to always be aware of beauty, to try and protect it. That's what you can learn from this." She kissed my cheek tenderly. "I'm so sorry for your pain, Neddy."

I smiled mentally as I remembered this conversation—only Mother was allowed to call me Ned. Not even Emmett had ever thought to try it, and I was glad. Emmett meant well, but him calling me Neddy would have meant an ugly fight for sure. That was something special that belonged only to my mother and me.

The memory released me suddenly, and to my surprise I found that I was in the exact same position that I'd recalled from my boyhood memory. My head was buried in Esme's lap as my body was racked by grief. It was more than I deserved, having had Elizabeth as my mother and Esme as my mom…to have them both comforting me like this. "I'm so sorry, Mom…" I moaned to Esme. "I'm so sorry for leaving you all, for being _so stupid_…I've hurt you, and my family, and _her, _and I'm so sorry. I can never make it up, not to any of you, no matter how hard I try."

"_Oh, Edward_," Esme thought, her eyes a heartbreaking liquid gold as she looked down at me. "_You were trying to do the right thing. I know that, we all know that. But you made a mistake, one you'd already made before. Please, Edward, stop running away, all right? Just promise me that. Running away never does any good…it only does harm. Promise me_."

I hung my head. "I don't know if I can promise you that, Mom," I admitted, my voice broken. "If something happens to her…you can't ask me to stay."

"Yes, I can," she said fiercely. "Don't you think that I know pain, Edward?"

"I know you do. But you didn't stay around for it, either," I reminded her as gently as I could, even though I was angered by her inference.

"And I know that I was wrong to do that, no matter how happy I am now because of my cowardice." Esme said quietly. "_Don't use me as your guide in this, Edward. Don't make the same mistakes I made because it all seemed to work out in the end for me. I threw myself off a cliff to escape the pain. I ran away. I felt that I couldn't bear life without the love of my little son. In the process of that idiotic mistake, I found Carlisle and you and this whole other life that I love. I don't know how I was lucky enough to be rewarded for weakness, but I was. _

"_But Edward_…" she paused for a small second, just to make sure that I was listening. "_I can promise that that will not be your fate. There will be no reward for you now if you run away. There can still be good in this world if you stay, even without Bella. _I know you don't believe me now,_" _she quickly said aloud, not allowing me to speak even though I'd opened my mouth,"but how can you know if you just run away again? There are people here who love you. Don't run away from love. That's what you did to Bella, and it has cost us all dearly now. Learn from that mistake, and don't run away from our love again_. _Stay."

"How can you say that to me with any degree of honesty, Esme?" I murmured, trying hard to remember to be respectful to her. "Put yourself in my shoes. If you were to lose Carlisle, what would you want to do?"

"I'd want to ask Emmett and Jasper to rip me apart and burn the pieces," Esme said calmly. "I would want to die."

"Then how can you judge me for wanting the same thing?" I cried.

"_Because I_ _wouldn't do it_, Edward_._ I wouldn't ask that of my sons, although God knows I'd want to with everything within me. Carlisle is nearly the entire world to me…yes, I said nearly. There are some other people on this planet that I love a great deal, too, people named Emmett, Rosalie, Jasper, Alice, Bella and Edward. And I would stay here for them. I would be sad," she shuddered just thinking about the grief, "but I would stay for my children, for their happiness."

"I have no children. It's not the same thing."

"No, but you _do_ have parents and siblings," Esme reminded me.

"You'd live. You all have one another."

"Does that make our love for you any the less?"

I scowled at the ground. "I'm not Jasper. I have no idea."

Esme laughed at that, startling me. "_Then let me reassure you, son. Just because the rest of us have spouses does not mean that you are unnecessary for our lives. We love you. It's not in the same way as we love our mates, true, but we love you deeply and strongly. You are just as vital for my survival as is Carlisle. That's why I'm asking you to stay, Edward, for me and for your siblings. We need you—maybe not like Bella does, but enough. Enough to help you live, even if you must live without her."_

I buried my face in her lap again, confused and worried and flattered and, above all, heartbroken. "I can't promise you anything now, Esme," I said, my voice muffled. "You have to give me some time to think…everything's happening so fast…"

She leaned down and softly kissed my head. "_I'll expect your answer soon, Edward. Besides, this may all be an unnecessary conversation, anyway. Bella may yet survive this and surprise us all, even you. She's shown a capacity for survival that I've never seen before in a human. If anyone can pull herself out of this, Bella can."_

I could only hope that she was right.

"You know…" Esme said aloud slowly, "I think that this is all Bella's way of surviving our loss in the first place."

"The thought has occurred to me," I admitted. "I made her promise to stay safe when I…when I left her. I never thought she'd be in this much pain, though. I guess I underestimated her, _again._ The only way that she could keep herself safe, to keep from hurting herself and breaking her promise, was to draw back inside her mind."

"It makes sense," Esme breathed. "_Oh, Edward…tell me what I can do. Tell me how I can help you. There's got to be a way to bring you both back to your senses."_

"Are you saying I've taken leave of mine?" I asked, confused.

"_Yes_," my mother agreed.

"Okay," I shrugged. "I guess I can see why you think that. I don't know, though, Esme. It's not like I know all that much about catatonic states in the first place. I had hoped that her hearing me, seeing me again would be enough to snap her out of it, but I guess she's so deep inside herself that she doesn't know I'm here. Either that or I still bring her so much pain that she's avoiding me completely. We have to start bringing her out of her mind, awakening her reflexes and thoughts."

I tried to think, tried to find some clues as to what our next step should be. "The only time that there's anything inside there at all is when she sleeps. That's the only bit of hope I have. When I first found her at the hospital, she was totally empty. Jasper couldn't feel anything coming from her at all; it was like she was just a wall or something to his senses. But we found that when Bella sleeps, something happens inside her mind. She fell asleep when we got her out of the hospital, and that's when it started. She moaned the entire way home—it was keening. That's the only word that can come close to describing it." I shivered at the memory. "It was like listening to a banshee…like she was a harbinger of death or something. It was the single most mournful, most devastated and suffering sound I've ever heard in my life. Jasper was in agony—he could finally feel something coming from her, all right, but it was so negative that he couldn't handle it. I wasn't any help at all, either.

"If Alice hadn't been there," I admitted readily enough to my mother figure, "we never would have made it to the plane in the first place. She ended up being the one to fly us out of there. Nothing I did helped Bella at all…she sobbed in her sleep the whole way. We couldn't rest, couldn't relax—she didn't stop until we got in the car again, when she finally woke up. Then she was empty again. I couldn't decide which was worse."

Esme nodded grimly. "_That sounds like the place to start to me. If she's more aware when she sleeps, odd as that sounds, maybe that's the time to talk to her, to try and get her to understand that she's safe now. Maybe if we jog her out of a nightmare suddenly enough, she'll be able to hear or see us again. I don't know…_."

"Those are good thoughts…I'm willing to try anything at this point."

"Anything?" Esme asked cautiously. "Edward, I…I know you don't want to hear this, but I have to say it. Do you think…well, do you think that the venom could heal her? Bring her out of it? Heal her mind?"

"I don't know, Esme. I've never dealt with something like this before," I groaned. "Venom works on the body…I have no idea if it would affect the mind. That's something we're just going to have to ask Carlisle."

Suddenly, I heard footsteps ghosting over the front lawn, coming from the direction of the forest. The steps were quick, graceful, and slightly tapping, suggesting high heeled shoes.

I winced. Rosalie.

I listened attentively to her quicksilver progress as she entered the house, Emmett's obnoxiously thunderous strides following right after his wife. For the moment, they were both feeling content with the blood of the bear they'd found, and that was consuming their thoughts. They both went to the back of the house immediately, though, upon their arrival … their thoughts suggested curiosity at the slightly unfamiliar scent that had met them at the door.

Emmett and Rosalie were in Carlisle's study for about a minute, the sight of Bella filling their minds to the exclusion of all else. It was only a second after the shock passed before I heard the lighter footsteps start back up again, hurried and slightly frantic in their tempo as Rosalie broke into a run. She was very angry with me…I could tell that much even through her blurry, enraged thoughts. She was mad at me for bringing Bella back into her perfect life and disrupting our family again, that much was clear even without coherent thoughts to help me with the translation. I sighed and waited for the storm of her selfishness and pride to break over us all. This wasn't going to be pretty, but it wasn't like I was unused to Rosalie and her tantrums.

My blonde sister hurtled to a fluid stop just in front of me before the back door had even slammed back to its mooring. Baring her glistening, white teeth, she efficiently crouched down into the fighting position that I'd taught her myself after her own transformation. "What did you do, you stupid, idiotic, blockhead of a fool?"she growled menacingly as she coiled herself to spring at me. Her eyes were slits of blackness, and her nostrils were flared.

"Rosalie," I explained impatiently, not even bothering to get up from my place at Esme's feet, "I _had_ to bring Bella back with me! I couldn't just leave her there, trapped in a hospital bed in some asylum…" I took a deep breath, trying to calm myself. "I know very well that you don't like Bella, but it's what I had to do. Stop overreacting like this at me! I've got enough to handle without you being on my back, too."

Rosalie snarled again, low and threateningly, snapping viciously at Emmett when he came too close as he hurried to see what the disturbance was. Esme lifted a restraining hand, but Rose ignored her mother completely.

"No, you moron!" she bellowed deafeningly at me. Rosalie's eyes were bubbling madly, like my words were the final ingredient to cause a dangerous chemical reaction. "For once, just once, Edward, would you stop thinking about how all this makes _you_ feel, about how devastated _you _are?" She glowered, her golden hair swirling around her like pale fire. "What did you do to that poor girl? _What's happened to Bella?"_

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A/N: Teehee, isn't that an awesome ending? I can hear the screaming reviews now…love me some screamage….

Anyway, if I get thirty reviews for this chapter by Friday, I will post the next chapter early, meaning you'll get it _on _Friday rather than you having to wait until next Monday. Therefore it is in your best interest to review if you want to find out what Rosalie's so pissed off about. C'mon. You know you want to. Push the button. That's it, good little reader….wow, that's patronizing…but fun!


	10. Dark Night of the Soul

Disclaimer: If I owned Twilight, I would have written it different. See author's note for details.

A/N: Wowzas, you guys! You have no idea how happy you made me with the review count on that last chapter! Bluebird is still singing happily about it. Well done!

Sheesh, though, a lot of you were sure antagonistic about the Neddy nickname…deal with it, I like it….much better than "Eddie."

Okay, I also wanted to comment on the fact that almost every single review had something derogatory about Rosalie in it. While Rosalie is not my favorite character, I think she's given a worse reputation than she deserves. It's not easy to be awesome when your creator butchers your character. See, _Eclipse_ was awesome. We finally got to see the reasons why Rosalie was the way that she was and to have a better understanding of her character. She was a tormented young woman that only wanted the best for the ones she loved and was willing to do whatever it took to maintain her safety. She'd been betrayed once. She'd be damned if she was going to let it happen again.

Then a crappy book happened and Rosalie the slightly bitchy but strong woman became Rosalie the psycho Baby Stealing Barbie Doll of Doom. Instead of a lovely ending book to a lovely series, we got a creepy ass excuse for a baby pulled out of SM's butt and a build up to a massive battle that never ended up happening but never had to have happened had the extensively wealthy Cullens merely invested in a few tactical missiles. Yay for Renfield! WAY better than a well developed plot. (Honestly, Renesmee? Seriously? I'm still wiggin' out about that one. Name the poor kid Elizabeth after Edward's mom for cryin' out loud.)

But I digress. My point is that Rosalie is a deep, layered character that wasn't treated kindly in the fourth book. You can disagree with me or not, it's your choice. However, this chapter is one of the ones I'm proudest of—I had an epiphany of my own. I hope you enjoy it. Rosalie is not nearly as much fun to write as Emmett is (gotta admit….I have a lot of fun with him later. It doesn't help that I'm from Tennessee, too…) but she's still worth exploring.

Don't look for another update until next Wednesday. My life is being eaten by papers. However, I'll update a day sooner if I get forty-five reviews. I'm also working on a couple oneshots, so that should be fun.

Enjoy! Review!

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I gazed at Rosalie in total surprise, my mouth open in shock. Was I hearing this right, or was _Rosalie_ actually angered at the condition that Bella was in? Had the sky turned purple all of a sudden, to explain this drastic change in what I'd considered to be a firm, cast-iron viewpoint? Surely I was mistaken. Rosalie did not deviate from her thought patterns. She would hold onto an idea with all the strength she could muster, allowing it to strengthen or embitter her for as long as she possibly could. It was her way of remembering what it was to be human, the kind of human she'd been, anyway.

I knew, far better than anyone else could, that Bella and Rosalie were polar opposites. There could be nothing in the world that Rosalie would feel brought her and Bella together—so why was she suddenly so sympathetic toward Bella?

My adopted sister continued to glare at me from her crouched position. "You made us all leave Forks for Bella's own good, to protect her from what we are. Did you ever stop and think, Edward, that I might have agreed with you on that decision? Yes, I _was_ pissed at you for making us all give up our lives there, but I thought it was ultimately worth the sacrifice. I guess I was too stupid to see what I should have. But you're smarter than me—you should have realized what the consequences of leaving would be."

"Where is all this _coming_ from?" I demanded, bewildered by her fervor. "Since when have you ever shown even the slightest degree of caring toward Bella?"

"Don't you get it, Edward?" Suddenly, Rosalie looked close to tears, if that were possible for a vampire. She straightened up, towering over me as I knelt on the ground by Esme's feet. "_I_ was once the innocent, human girl that was overtaken by something stronger than her. _I_ was once a girl who knew nothing of darkness.

"But then everything I knew was shattered. I was left behind by a man who was supposed to take care of me, to love me no matter what happened. I was left for dead.

"You're no better than Royce and his _friends_, Edward," she spat out, not caring a whit that Esme and Emmett were hearing her in this vulnerable moment. "You took a beautiful young girl and you forced her to see all the cruelty of the world, and then to _face_ the reality of that cruelty. And then you have the categorical arrogance to presume that a girl like Bella can look into that kind of darkness and remain unscathed!

"You are a coward. You never should have started this _thing_ with Bella in the first place, but once you started it, you should have finished it. You left her for dead, Edward, just like I was left. There was no one there to vote no for her—you forced _your_ decision on her without a thought of the repercussions it would involve for Bella."

She glowered at me dangerously. "Look carefully at your reward, Edward. I hope you're happy with it—you certainly worked hard enough to get here. This life for yourself, for _her, _had better have been worth it."

Rosalie turned on her heel and swept away. A thoroughly bewildered Emmett stumbled behind in her wake, although he was shooting me worried glances on his way out—he was wondering just how he was supposed to calm Rosalie down now.

There was a deep silence as I was trying to work my way out of the shock of the strength and…and the _truth_ of Rosalie's words.

"Oh, dear," Esme murmured.

I don't remember getting up. I don't remember doing anything. All I know is that a few hours later, I was in the middle of the Alaskan wilderness with no clear idea of what to do, with not an inkling of how to deal with all the emotions that were searing their ways through my body.

With the clarity offered by Rosalie's rage, I could see that I had become the thing that I had used to hunt. I was no better than the man that stalked a young girl down a dark alley. I was, in fact, far, far worse. The young girl that died in that alley died at the hands of a stranger. I had taken Isabella Marie Swan, a girl who was pure and selfless and undeserving, and had forced her into a fate infinitely worse than death. She had been shoved into that fate with the hands of a loved one—mine. They were the hands of someone that had held her close and cradled her face and had protected her from harm, the hands of someone whom she had trusted with her life.

I had sworn, time and time again, to keep her safe, to hurt myself if it meant giving her peace. I had taken that promise and perverted it into something grotesque.

A conversation that Bella and I had had back in those golden days in Forks came to me then as I tried to remind myself of the logic of my decision to leave, to hold on to the notion that I really had done the right thing. It was a conversation I'd based everything on—I'd thought it was infallible justification for my choices. "_But I'm not saying good-bye,_" I heard Bella say softly, the cacophony of the school cafeteria a faint buzz behind her words in my memory.

"_Don't you see? That's what proves me right,_" I'd told her, thinking it was a show of my higher intellect—not that she was unintelligent, of course. I just knew better than her in this instance; I'd lived for much, much longer a time than she had. "_I care the most, because if I can do it…if leaving is the right thing to do, then I'll hurt myself to keep from hurting you, to keep you safe._"

She'd glared me, a sight I'd found distinctly amusing and endearing at the time coming from her gentle, heart-shaped face. Now I saw the passion behind the pitifully frail face, and did not underestimate it. "_And you don't think I'd do the same?_"

I'd declared arrogantly in reply, "_You'd never have to make the choice._"

But she had…I could see that now. I'd thought myself the braver, the stronger of the two of us because I had sacrificed myself to keep her safe. It was death, I'd told myself, leaving her behind. She was my life. There could be no worse fate. At least I was keeping her from knowing that fate.

But I was wrong—I hadn't kept her from that choice at all. Bella had made the decision for herself, long before I had, and I hadn't even realized it. She'd told me in the only way she could, quite clearly. I still had the letter to prove it.

_I love you_, she'd written, her handwriting weak and shaky._ I am so sorry… I have to try. It may not work. I am so very, very sorry… And please, don't come after me. That's what he wants, I think. I can't bear it if anyone has to be hurt because of me, especially you. Please, this is the only thing I can ask you now. For me._

How simple, how utterly powerful were the words writing on generic stationary from a hotel in Phoenix, Arizona. I'd kept her letter with me on my journey away from Forks, just to have something with me that she'd touched, a tangible piece of her. I didn't realize that I had been carrying around a relic of my Bella's love as well.

Bella had left us all behind in Phoenix that day to keep from hurting me. She'd given her life to keep me from getting hurt by James, to keep me from having to make that hard choice—and I'd never seen it. Her actions were proof of her love, the love she had not just for her mother, but also for me, and I'd never recognized it for what it was.

Yes, Bella had thought that James was holding her mother captive at the time, but she'd begged me, _me_, not to follow her, to keep on living because she thought that was the best thing for me. It had hurt her—I had been able to tell that much in her words. But it hadn't stopped her from acting in the way she thought right. _No, Edward, don't!_ she'd screamed hysterically in the video tape, when James had asked her if she'd wanted me to follow him. She was in pain, facing death itself, and she was still placing her frail human life between me, a vampire, and harm.

She had hurt herself to keep from hurting me, to keep me safe….

She was willing to die for me….

And she had done it so simply I'd never even noticed. She'd been playing the part of the quiet martyr as she always had …. And she had done it all without denying our love …. as I had when I'd left her in my mistaken of idea of what was for her own good.

I collapsed on the ground, broken down under the weight of my own stupidity and selfishness. How had she ever justified sacrificing herself for me? How could I have missed the fact that she loved me enough to keep me living even when she couldn't live with me? I'd thought all this time that I was the stronger of our relationship, that I had been protecting Bella all along when I'd left her behind.

I was wrong.

A tiny, young, physically weak human girl was far stronger than I could ever hope to be. It was when I'd undervalued that love and devotion by throwing it in her face and leaving her behind that she'd finally snapped.

The world seemed utterly dark as I realized this. I remembered reading about something called "the dark night of the soul" and I knew that that was what I was experiencing now. And I, who had faced so much darkness in my lifetime, now found that I'd never truly known the night. I'd never known all the depth that the night could face. How could I possibly bear it now?

I was not alone for very long, though, as I faced my weakness and painful fallibility there on the hard ground. At some point, and I don't know when, a tiny body came and settled down beside me while a small hand slipped lovingly into my own.

Alice sat with me all through the dark, seemingly endless night. There were no stars, no moon. She was absolutely silent, but she was a constant comfort when I didn't deserve comfort at all.

When the morning dawned bright and beautiful, all the more beautiful for the former absence of the light, Alice pulled me gently from the ground and led me back to the house without asking a single question of me. The night had been long, but at least now I had faced my mistakes and stupidity honestly, and I was prepared to fix them as best I could.

Bella had asked me to keep on living as her last request once. I would do that for her, because I loved her enough to spare her even this hurt, whether she knew of my sacrifice or not. She may have been the first to make the choice, but I would use her as my guide through the coming days, come what may.

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Throughout the following days, my new-found fortitude was tested but never shaken. I left Bella's side only to hunt or spend a few minutes with my family. I sat in a chair by her bedside, reading everything I could find on her condition. I also tried to evoke some kind… any kind… of reaction from her. I read aloud, I played her favorite movies on the flat screen TV Emmett installed for us, I made stupid jokes I would have been embarrassed to have anyone else hear me use. In the quiet, frightening night hours, I sang softly to her, always ending the little concert with her lullaby.

Carlisle, when he wasn't at work, was just as tireless as I was in his search to find something to help Bella. But nothing was working and Alice couldn't tell when or if that fact would change. It was with a heavy heart that I sent the nurse, Linda, the first report on Bella's condition. _No change_.

All of my family members were being more than kind to us both. Rosalie wasn't speaking to me at all, of course, which was somewhat of a relief to me, but she'd bought some silk sheets for Bella's bed. I once even found her softly talking to Bella about hair care products that might bring Bella's dark chocolate hair back to their former state again. She'd looked up contemptuously when I came in the room and found her like that, and she swept out immediately without giving me another glance.

I knew from Rosalie's thoughts that she was terribly uncomfortable with talking to the pitiful human girl on the bed, but she'd felt that it was the least she could do. After all, there was now that strange sense of fellowship that Rosalie felt toward Bella.

Besides, it was also evident that Rosalie was partly being kind in order to spite me, to remind me of my failures toward Bella. Her own strong, beautiful body served to emphasize Bella's weakness, and threw into sharper relief the choice that Rosalie felt I should have made. Her plan worked better than she knew, but I was just grateful that Rosalie wasn't taking her anger out on Bella.

Esme and Alice were my greatest helps during those days—both of them were willing to drop whatever they were doing at any time in order to bathe and dress Bella, or to stay with her if I had to go hunting or run an errand with Carlisle to visit doctors or libraries. Esme seemed to find some unusual kind of pleasure in caring for Bella—her total dependence on others reminded Esme of the few days she'd been able to care for her baby boy.

Alice did everything she could simply because she loved Bella. She was also hoping that the more time she spent with Bella, the more sensitive her visions would become. Maybe then she'd have an idea when Bella might awake.

Even Emmett tried to be helpful in his own blustering way. One of the memories that hadn't faded from his human life was his mother's pet remedy for everything from influenza to a stomach virus—a swig of home brewed whiskey, or so the long-gone Mrs. McCarty had believed, could cure anything under the sun. Emmett suggested aloud only once that we get Bella drunk, advice that I had quickly vetoed, but that didn't stop him from thinking about it _constantly_. That irritation from him aside, Emmett was good about keeping Rosalie out of my hair, and about going hunting with me whenever I wanted (translation: needed and was forced by Carlisle by direct command) to go.

But Jasper…that was a different story. I knew how much Jasper really wanted to help, but he was incapacitated by Bella's emotions every time he "tried." He found her emptiness too devastating to be around for long during the day, and her keening at night was agonizing for him to experience on the multiple levels to which he was so sensitive. I knew that Jasper spent a fair amount of his time now out in the woods. I would have felt badly about forcing him out of his home if it hadn't been for the fact that I needed him so much and he was never there. It was maddening.

Bella's soft keening had never stopped—every time she went to sleep, she would begin her quiet death-ridden moaning. Nothing I did calmed her, and none of the members of my family could bear it for very long. I desperately wanted Jasper's help to calm her down, but he just couldn't handle it. Or said he couldn't.

Jasper could have brought her some peace, maybe even helped me identify Bella's emotions when she was keening. That could have helped me to discover what she was dreaming if anything, which might have provided clues to her recovery. But Jasper never did. My oldest brother brought me book after book from town to read to Bella and encouraged Alice to help me, but he never stayed around Bella long enough to discern anything from her emotions if he possibly could.

One day I was sitting in the living room at Esme's request, having a conversation with my family while Alice stayed with Bella. Esme was worried that I was losing touch with my family members, so she regularly pried me from Bella's side in order to have some semi-normal time with them. She often got my siblings and Carlisle on her side, and they would bait me into having arguments over meaningless topics, just to get my mind off of Bella. I knew what she was up to, of course, but it helped me. I was grateful for her, even though it was annoying at times.

I was therefore caught up in a heated debate with Carlisle when Alice came down the hall and stood in the doorway, looking both worried and harassed. "Edward, Bella's doing it again."

I knew to what she was referring—the keening—and felt the helpless look overtake my face as Alice talked.

"I can't bear this anymore," she said in frustration, stamping her small foot. "We've _got_ to figure out what's causing it, or calm her down somehow. It's nothing less than cruelty to allow this to continue any longer. We've got to help her!"

"I'd like to do that, Alice," I said, glaring accusingly in Jasper's direction as he cringed against the cushions on the couch. "But unfortunately, I can't read her mind. There's nothing more that I can do—nothing _I _can do helps."

At my words, Alice turned and looked beseechingly at her husband. He gazed back at her with pleading eyes, no doubt pelting her with emotions that would make her go all soft and yielding and let him off the hook.

Alice remained unmoved. "Don't give me that, Jasper. You're stronger than you give yourself credit for, and we need your help now. I'm _so_ over this."

With a lively roll of her butterscotch eyes, Alice strode over to Jasper and yanked him up unceremoniously by the arm. He was so surprised that he allowed the tiny vampire to propel him forcibly down the hall. I followed in their steps, feeling an insane urge to laugh that Jasper was probably _not_ encouraging.

Alice really had reached the end of her patience—this could get interesting.

Jasper balked at the door to Bella's room, but Alice jerked him through the door with no qualms about the position of her husband's body, causing Jasper to hit his head on the doorframe. "Ouch!" he yelped, rubbing his head. "Was that really necessary?"

"Don't be such a baby," Alice told him scathingly. "You're a vampire, man! Act like it! Now get your butt over to that bed and start empath-ing already!"

Jasper turned around and sent her such a hurt, betrayed look that one of Alice's bell-like peals of laughter went wending through the room at the sight. I found myself smiling for a moment at the loveliness of her free expression of humor…and then I froze solid.

The rigid, moaning figure on the bed had turned her head minutely toward the sound of Alice's laughter.

Alice gasped. Jasper staggered. "T-t-there was s-s-s-something there!" he stuttered nearly incoherently. "For just a second, I felt something from her!"

I leapt to Bella's side in one bound, peering down at her intently. Her keening was silenced, and I could see and hear that she was sleeping soundly for the first time since I'd found her again. "Bella!" I shouted, desperate for a further sign. "Bella, can you hear me? It's Edward! Bella, I love you! Please, Bella, please, please, look at me!"

She didn't even twitch.

Why had she reacted to Alice, and not to me? "Keep talking, Alice," I begged. "Say something, say anything at all, and see if it happens again!"

Alice looked stricken, but she started babbling on about trivialities that were only interesting to her. Between the comments on rising Asian designers and obscure visions of stock market trends, I waited to see if Bella would react again…but she never did. She slept on, but peacefully.

What could it possibly mean? Pushing back my anxiety (and hurt—I was selfish enough to want Bella to react to _me_, not Alice), I glanced back at Jasper. "What did you feel from her, Jasper? Was she waking up? What caused it to happen, now of all times?"

"It was Alice's laughter, I think," Jasper said carefully, trying to figure things out. "It was so quick, just a flash, really. I had trouble catching the emotions before they were gone again. There was recognition in there somewhere…trust…and what I'm pretty sure was love. But there was also a faint tinge of memory to it, though, like she thought Alice was just a memory and not reality at all. She was remembering Alice's laugh and how much she loved her." Jasper looked troubled, but also…something else. Furtive, maybe, but in a positive way. Apprehensive. He was trying desperately to keep from thinking something by concentrating on the specifics of the Battle of Galveston.

"I know that look on your face," Alice said, peering at her husband. Her hands went saucily to her hips. "You use it when you're trying to keep a surprise from me. You're not telling us everything, Jazz."

"No, he's not," I accused. "Stop trying to hide things from me."

"I'm sorry, Edward," Jasper apologized. "I just…I don't want you to put too much stock in something I felt for a tenth of a second."

I gritted my teeth, and spoke through them. "I'm going to put stock in what you say. It's all I have to hold on to. Just tell me, dammit!"

"All right, all right." He took a deep breath. "When she heard Alice's laugh, it seemed to me that Bella felt…hopeful. I'm pretty sure that was it. It was like waiting for the night to end, and the faintest crack of dawn appearing. She didn't believe in it too much, but it was as if Alice's laugh was a sign that the dream might end someday. Most of that is sheer conjecture." Jasper rushed to put a disclaimer on his words, so that he wouldn't be held liable. He couldn't bear to make a mistake now, when the stakes were so high. "I just can't be sure, Edward. Please don't hold me to it."

A smile so wide that I'm surprised my face was still intact sorely impeded my ability to speak. "Thank you, Jasper. It's not much, but it's the first piece of good news I've had in months." Unable to retain my feelings, I leapt toward Jasper and hugged him with all the strength I had. "Thank you!"

"Um, Edward?" Jasper quavered. "Would you mind if I asked you to stop attacking me now? I don't think Alice would like it much if you snapped me in half."

"Oh. Right. Sorry," I muttered, letting Jasper go immediately.

"Thanks." Jasper rubbed his chest. "_I get the strength of your feelings without you actively expressing them, private."_ He called me "private" during happy times like this. It was because he had been a major in the army, and if I'd become a soldier as I'd planned to be in the Great War, I would have been a private. It made Jasper happy to remind me that he outranked me in some things, and I found myself actually mildly liking the nickname. It wasn't bad as nicknames went…unlike Emmett's pitiful "Eduardo" phase…

Alice grinned brightly, the light from the lamp on the bedside table reflecting off her teeth—she'd been standing silently, consulting the future. I knew as well as she did that nothing definite was there yet. "The future is still blurry, but there finally is a future. I don't know what it holds, but it's there.

"But I'm not like my husband," she said impishly. "I don't mind hugs." Alice leapt headlong into my arms, and embraced me warmly, burying her face against my neck. "_It's the first step, Edward,"_ she thought happily to me. "_It's not much, but it's a beginning!"_

I hugged my sister back. I would never forget the fact that it was Alice's laugh that had first given me a sign of hope.

After a moment, I gently pushed myself away from Alice and sat down in front of my laptop. It seemed that I had an email to write, and I was very much looking forward to it, when I thought of the happiness it would bring to the reader.

_Dear Linda,_ I typed quickly, my eyes on Bella and not the screen. _I have very exciting news to share with you. Bella moved today…_

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A/N: SHE MOVED! What'll happen next? Only Bluebird and I know, muahahahaha! Review if you want to find out!


	11. Bells

Disclaimer: If I owned it, I would be guilty of slavery. Slavery is bad. I don't own it. I guess I'm not bad.

A/N: So, this is a fair bit later than I told you guys. My apologies. In all fairness, exams are officially over Friday and I'll have so much more time then! Your updates will be a lot more regular.

The reviews on the last chapter were down a little. Sadness. Please, folksies, the more you review, the fast I'll update! There is a link! It is proven! If I get 35 reviews for this by Friday, I'll update early. Cool? Cool.

Okay, so a lot of you wanted to know what Bella was thinking – here you go! Teehee! I'm starting some Emmett love here…I love writing for him. And Carlisle. Happiness.

This chapter is dedicated to Anna Holly Cullen because she suggested the most awesome song ever for this chapter's playlist. You're right! It is perfect! Well done! (Any other suggestions are always welcome…)

Enjoy!

Playlist: Haunted by Kelly Clarkson (thank you, Anna) and Mad World by Gary Jules (probably gonna do this as a oneshot for _Twilight _eventually…already used it for Harry Potter, but dangit, it's an awesome song!)

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Darkness…never ends…

World soft…warm…not cold anymore.

Dreams, devastation…where am I?

"Hey, Bella! It's Emmett… Edward will be right back. Carlisle needed his help with some research this morning. Some big-shot psychologist doesn't seem to want to share some information on his findings on catatonic states. Damn good thing we have Mr. Super Jedi Dude on our side to do a little fancy mind-reading, huh? Anyway, I sure wish you would wake up. Things are really fantastically boring right now. No fights or _anything_."

Just a dream…good one…. Emmett, Edward…

Not real. Never real.

Stay in nothingness…stay safe…

Don't hope…

"_I was wishing I could believe that you were real. And I was wishing that I wasn't afraid._"

"_I don't want you to be afraid._"

I am afraid… afraid that he was _never _real…

So easy to believe, in this nothingness…

Stop! Don't think!

Legs stretch…leave me be…keep together…

"…so I think that plum nail polish would be really beautiful on you. It'd go so well with your hair and eye color. Or a delicate rose color…Edward's so fond of blue on you, the idiot. Doesn't he realize that it isn't really your color? But we'll allow him some stupidity. Um…well…sheesh, I'm just not any good at this talking to an inanimate object business. I guess I could tell you what kind of shampoo you should really start using…"

Doors, opening and shutting. Voices, coming and going.

Where…squeaky wheels? Noisy intercom? They've vanished.

Renee? Charlie?

Don't care anymore…everything gone…

He left me.

Alice, can you see me now? What does the future say for me?

Wrist itches…what's there?

A lullaby…_my_ lullaby…don't! Stop it!

Cruel, so cruel…

Makes me cry…unhappy…not real…

I'm worthless.

"_You're interesting when you sleep. You talk._"

Not anymore…never again.

Why talk? So much pain….

"There you go, Bella dear. I've brought you a new nightgown…isn't it lovely? I thought this shade of blue would be cheerful, and you know how much Edward likes it. Edward's taking a quick run… he needed a chance for a break, not that he wanted one, of course. Really, I just sent him because I wanted some time with my youngest daughter. Now, would you like me to read _Wuthering Heights_ or _The Secret Garden_ to you? Well… _Wuthering Heights_ is rather dour, isn't it? I've never cared for it myself. Edward said that _The Secret Garden_ was your favorite as a girl. Let's begin, shall we?"

Pages turn.

"It begins, 'When Mary Lennox was sent to Misselthwaite Manor to live with her uncle, everybody said she was the most disagreeable child ever seen…'"

"_You don't mind, then? That I'm…all wrong for him?_"

"_No. You're what he wants. It will work out, somehow._"

Esme…if only it had worked out….

A deep voice, near my ear. Familiar…like Forks, long ago…

Carlisle…

"May Christ support us all the day long, till the shadows lengthen, and the evening comes, and the busy world is hushed, and the fever of life is over and our work is done. Then in His mercy may He give us a safe lodging, and holy rest and peace at the last. Amen."

Carlisle?

Impossible…gone…

Nothing's real…nothing's alive…

Something pierces the air…something lovely.

What is it? A chorus, a song…

Bells?

Silver bells?

Bells. That's what Charlie used to call me.

Many bells, though….not just one…me…

Then I know…Alice. It's her laugh.

Alice… I love… I miss… I remember…

Not real…. but so nice….

Nothingness….

Lost in that nothingness, I dreamed.

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A/N: There! Isn't it awesome? Remember, peeps, review and you'll get the next chapter. And the next chapter involves some Emmett mayhem involving walls and airhorns. There, now, don't you want to read it? REVIEW!


	12. Thunderstruck

Disclaimer: Don't own it. Never have. End of story.

A/N: This is a fairly long author note. Ye be warned.

Okay, so I realize that a lot of you are out for my blood since this update is LONG overdue. However, regular updates should now be coming your way since school is over and I'm not working as much. No promises, but it WILL be better.

However, the reason this particular update is late (it was ready a couple days ago) is because on Friday, I gained a boyfriend. (Waits for the squees…) He's awesome and amazing and COMPLETELY worth the wait. That's my advice to all my former single colleagues. Don't sell out. He's out there. Just be patient and work on yourself and being okay with who you are before you look for someone else to complete you.

I'm a little hesitant about this chapter – I'm worried I'm going to step on some toes with this. I am, personally, a Christian, but that doesn't affect how I write Fanfiction. Much. I explored this aspect of Carlisle's background, just as I would if he were a Buddhist. I respect everyone, so please don't take offense. Every character needs to be delved into, and this is how I chose to do it.

Mad props go out to OstentatiousQuerida for seeing that Bella's chapters are slowly getting more coherent. She was the only one to see it!

This chapter is also dedicated to the memory of Daddy's Little Cannibal, who was tragically killed in a car accident. I respected her work, especially "Imagination Land." She will be missed by all of us in the Fanfiction community.

Review, please! In needs me some reviews.

As promised, Emmett and the air horns and goats!

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Emmett was swiftly becoming a bigger nuisance than I would have thought possible for him. He got the idea somehow that Alice's laugh had surprised Bella from her stupor, so he thought that further surprises would snap her out of it for good. They just had to be exponentially _bigger_ surprises—to match his own bulk, no doubt. He started lurking, as much as someone like Emmett _can_ lurk, in Bella's room, watching for any available opportunity to spring some kind of joke or loud noise on her.

Nothing, it seemed, was beneath Emmett's pride to do. He would've walked into Bella's bedroom stark naked if Rosalie had allowed him to, which she didn't. Undaunted by that injunction, he walked into closed doors, he played obscenely loud rap music, and once he even leapt through the wall beside Bella's bed, bringing down a large amount of drywall and framing with him. It took him a day to put up and paint the new wall—Esme and Carlisle were not amused, especially at the undertaking it took to move all of the medical equipment and Bella out while the room became a construction zone. Neither was I amused to any degree when I had to confiscate an air horn from him right before he blew it in Bella's ear.

Rosalie just rolled her eyes at the whole situation.

However, we were all offered a reprieve from Emmett's antics when he would disappear for several hours of the day at a time. I had no idea what he was doing and Alice wouldn't tell me, but I was too grateful for the quiet to question it very much.

Emmett was a relatively simple person—I knew that he was incapable of keeping a secret for very long. Likely he was just trying to irritate a mother bear with cubs against Carlisle's rules and Alice was helping to protect him from getting in trouble. The last thing Emmett wanted was yet another kind but stern lecture from Carlisle about remaining ecologically friendly, being as unostentatious as possible, and ending it all with, "Though we be predators, Emmett, we must be _conscientious_ predators. It's what separates us from other killers—our ethical motivations." None of which made the slightly dent in Emmett's eagerness, of course. Ethical motivations didn't have a large place in his childhood on the dirt floor of a cabin in the mountains, and they didn't have a large place in his new life, either.

Now that Jasper had seen something that brought him a little hope, he was far more willing to help me calm Bella down when she was afraid at night. I was grateful, even though I didn't need his assistance as much as I had before. Bella was sleeping much more soundly, which had slowly removed the vivid purple bruises from around her eyes. She continued to keen at erratic intervals. At least now it wasn't a constant thing.

We couldn't convince her to relax her rigid position, but she would stay still if someone held her. This allowed Bella's bedsores to begin to heal, and it also gave us the opportunity to exercise her limbs at times, trying to keep her body limber and her muscles from atrophying. Even I recognized that all of it was very much a lost cause, though. Even when…if…Bella woke up, she was going to have severe muscle and bone loss from her months of inactivity and malnutrition. Her body could never be brought back to its former strength. Now that she seemed marginally more aware, though, her IV fluids seemed to be taking greater effect. The hollows in her cheeks were not as cavernous, and her ribs didn't look like they were about to poke through her papery skin, although she couldn't be considered healthy in her appearance just yet. She only looked slightly less Holocaust-esque now than she had before.

I'd received a reply from Linda, Bella's nurse back in Miami. She'd been absolutely ecstatic at the news of Bella's progress, and had offered her congratulations and continued prayers. In the course of our correspondence, Linda and I had begun to get to know one another better. Even though most of the things Linda knew about me were carefully fabricated half-truths, I still found myself enjoying my interactions with her. She was a rare individual for a human—she was absolutely sincere in everything she said and did. Sincerity was a quality I could appreciate because I could never hope to emulate it in my own life. My existence was focused on lies. The only thing I'd ever been entirely sincere about before was when I'd professed my love to Bella…and then I'd gone and marred that irreparably, too.

Despite the small improvements in Bella's sleeping and eating habits, we could find no further evidence of her coming out of her catatonic state. Stubborn as ever, Carlisle said that she was staying where she felt safe—her own mind. Her reactions to light, pain, and sounds remained stationary, and even Bella's reflexes were slow and sluggish. I found keeping my faith alive hard to do. How could you convince a girl that could not hear that sounds were real? How could you remind somebody in darkness of the light? At times, it all seemed like a hopeless task. I wished that I could catch a weeks after the incidents surrounding Alice's laugh, I leapt up the stairs that led to the house and walked down the hall to Bella's room, feeling completely sated from the blood of a mountain lion I'd been fortunate enough to find.

My mind was on several things at once—the senseless future that Alice was seeing, the bet that Emmett had won with Jasper over who could bring down an elk the fastest, the update that I needed to send to Bella's parents on her condition. I was so preoccupied that I didn't realize what Carlisle was doing in his office until I came to an abrupt halt at the door as his quiet voice reached me.

Carlisle was kneeling, praying at Bella's bedside. I recognized with a start his words—they were from the Book of Common Prayer, the volume that Carlisle had grown up with when he'd lived with his Anglican pastor father back in the older days of London. "Almighty God," he prayed quietly, "in whose hands lies the destiny of men and nations. Let not the hopes of men perish, nor the sacrifices of men be in vain. O holy and life-giving Spirit, enable us by thy grace to root out from our common life the bitterness and ancient wrongs and the thirst to avenge the betrayals of long ago…"

I listened, frozen, to the long prayer. Carlisle's voice was so fervent, so hopeful and so...so _reverent._ I'd known that he still carried a great deal of the faith he'd found in his youth, but I'd had no idea that he held to it _this_ strongly. He'd never made a big deal of his faith, or tried to force it on anyone else.

Was it this faith that separated Carlisle and I, that made us so different? Was this unfathomable belief what made him the better man of the two of us?

Carlisle remained totally unaware of my presence as he prayed on, his hands clasped together near Bella's head. "O Lord, calm the waves of this heart; calm its tempests. Calm thyself, O my soul, so that the divine can act in thee. Calm myself, O my soul, so that God is able to repose in thee, so that His peace may cover thee…"

The calming of a storm…the storm of Bella's mind, the storm of Carlisle's guilt and thoughts. I placed a hand against the doorframe, and the quiet brushing of my skin against the wood snapped Carlisle out of his concentration. "Oh, Edward," he said, totally unembarrassed at getting caught in such a situation. "I'm sorry, son, I didn't know you were standing there. Did you and the others have a good hunt?"

"Yeah…it was great…" I answered, distracted. "I got a mountain lion."

"Good! I'm glad that you found your favorite." Carlisle rose from his kneeling position, and walked over to his desk, sitting down and pulling a book toward him. He made no comment of the fact that I was still staring at him, my jaw slack.

The room was utterly silent for a moment, except for Bella's raspy breaths as she gazed emptily at the wall in front of her and the turning pages of Carlisle's book.

I finally could stand it no longer. "Why, Carlisle?"

He looked up, his eyes and mind unsurprised. "_Why what, Edward?"_

"Why do you pray? _How_ can you pray like that, like you're so absolutely certain that God will hear you? You don't even know if you have a soul or not!"

"_Oh, I believe that I have a soul, Edward, and you know that very well."_ Carlisle smiled at me in what could only be called a fatherly sort of way. "_I believe my soul to be safe with God. Whether I am a vampire or not, death will eventually come for me. There really isn't such a thing as forever, not even for us. Immortality simply does not exist. And when I die, as I know that I will someday, I believe that God will take my soul to be with Him, since I have entrusted Him with its keeping."_

I flopped down bonelessly into the chair in front of Carlisle's desk. "But how can you believe that we are deserving of that kind of grace? Humans have souls—and let me remind you, Carlisle, that you and I aren't human. Logically, that means that we don't have souls. No souls, no hope of heaven."

"_But we were human once, Edward. Do you think what happened to us made our souls die? Disappear? And does that not seem like a human argument? Since when have humans ever been logical? Grace has been made available to all... Including us…"_

"Not to everyone," I murmured, thinking of myself.

"Yes, it is," Carlisle disagreed aloud. "_Even for you_, Edward. I know that you don't think you are, but you are a good person. You've lived as well as you've known how. Even that is not enough for the kind of grace that I rest in… but it's the best place to start. The grace I rest in is stronger than who we are, stronger than what we do, stronger than even our faith in it _is_…. It is strong enough to be a sure resting place in the end. I believe that you, and all of my family for that matter, can rest in that grace, the kind of grace that will send us to heaven in the end. _That_ kind of grace offers us a reprieve from the rigid judgment of the world."

"But that kind of grace simply doesn't _exist_, Carlisle!" I exploded in irritation. "What kind of evidence is there that the world can even contain something like that grace? There are wars and famine. Families are torn apart, and death and illnesses exist no matter how much we try to fight them. This is a world of simultaneous rules and chaos. The bad people sometimes get what they deserve, true, but the good ones die, too! There is no true justice, no grace!"

I slammed my hand angrily against the desk, but did not break the wood. "This higher kind of grace that you talk about is for fairy tales and make-believe, for people that just want to make themselves feel better when they mess up. There isn't enough love in the world to allow you and me to find grace for being what we are. Maybe you have a chance at heaven, Carlisle, whatever heaven is—nobody's blood stains _your_ hands. But for me, though…no grace can cover me. I've killed too many people, and I've marred the only pure and perfect thing I've ever come across in my century of existence. Rigid judgment will catch me one day, and grace will not be able save me because it doesn't exist. Not for me."

"You truly don't believe that grace exists for you, Edward?" Carlisle asked quietly, his face grave and concerned. "Is that really what you believe? If it is, then you don't see things as well as I thought you did … You are confusing what you've _done _with whether or not grace exists…. You are confusing your desire for perfection in the world with grace … but grace works in the _absence_ of perfection."

His voice trailed off, and then he sighed.

"_There is plenty of evidence for the kind of grace of which I speak, one of which is in this room right now."_

I snorted. "What's that? A Bible?" I tried to keep the derision out of my voice, but I was too irritated at how badly I seemed to be losing this debate.

"_No, Edward_. Carlisle's topaz eyes drilled into mine. "_To find grace of the kind that you seek, you need look no further than at that girl behind you. She has enough love to cover you, and it is her love that offers you the grace that you desire."_

I stared at Carlisle, speechless, finally pulling my eyes away so that I could look at Bella's frail form on the bed. Carlisle's hand came down lightly on my shoulder. "_That's_ why I pray, Edward. _That's_ why I'm trying to save her: for you, and for all of us. She is the clearest beacon of grace that I have ever seen in all my long years. She more clearly imitates the Man on the cross than anyone else I have ever known. How else can you possibly define grace? She willingly gave her life for you and for her mother when she didn't have to. She loves without reason and without restraint. She forgives unconditionally. There _is _grace in the world, and it _is_ enough, even for you. Let Bella be your example before you wipe away the remote possibility of its existence."

Carlisle's footsteps left the room then, and left me to my thoughts.

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That night, rain pattered gently against the windowpane, and I stared at the drops of water broodingly. Carlisle was at the hospital, a fact for which I was a little grateful. I didn't want him coming up with any more bewildering philosophical questions for me to puzzle out. It was far worse that I was finding myself agreeing with him against my will—my whole world was being turned upside-down by one short conversation. A soul? Did I really and truly have one? Could grace really cover me? _Me?_ Of all people?

Esme, ignoring my obvious preoccupation, was sitting beside Bella's bed, reading quietly from _Pride and Prejudice_. Her warm, silken voice flowed over me comfortingly, even though I wasn't really concentrating on the words.

My concentration was shattered, though, as I saw a tennis ball come whistling through the doorway, expertly aimed for the wall beside Bella's bed. I inwardly groaned—was he _trying_ to knock it down yet again? Almost lazily, my hand flashed out and snatched the ball from midair before it could go any further into the room.

"Aw, damn you, Edward!" Emmett moaned, slumping in through the door when he saw that his brilliant little plan had been foiled. "You ruined it! I swear, you're the biggest party pooper to ever walk the earth. You won't let me blow air horns, you won't let me set a goat loose in here…"

"Right," I agreed, tossing the ball between my hands. "And I won't let you throw a ball close to Bella's head. I know you weren't going to hit her," I said quickly to head off Emmett's protests, "but give it a rest, all right, Emmett? I know that you're trying to help in your own slightly moronic way, and I really do appreciate the thought, but let's call it a day. Bella needs to get some sleep, and you're not exactly a soothing influence."

Peering over the top of her book, Esme sent Emmett a scathing glare—she actually looked dangerous for once. It was a look that she only pulled out occasionally, such as when her houseful of teenage immortals suddenly remembered their human hormones and acted on them. I was glad she only used it on rare occasions—honestly, it scared the crap out of me. "That reminds me! If you knock down that wall yet again, Emmett McCarty Cullen, I'm grounding you from gambling for a year. This may be where Bella is staying, but it's still your father's study. Show him and Bella some respect. Enough is enough. Do we have an understanding?"

Emmett stomped from the room, muttering dangerously under his breath. Esme rolled her eyes, unperturbed, and started reading aloud to Bella again. I sank back into my thoughts, and the silence resumed over the house.

The quiet remained unbroken for a time, and Esme kept on reading. "Her thoughts were all fixed on Pemberley House, whichever it might be," murmured Esme, turning a page carefully with her pointer finger, "where Mr. Darcy then was. She longed to know what, at that moment, was passing in his mind—in what manner he thought of her, and whether, in defiance of anything, she was still dear to him. Perhaps he had been civil, only because he felt himself at ease; yet there had been _that_ in his voice which was not like ease. Whether he felt more of pain or pleasure in seeing her she could not tell, but he certainly had not seen her with composure…"

Bella's eyelids drooped toward her pale cheeks while I found myself pondering the text. Would the ironies in our lives _never_ cease? Is that the way Bella had felt about me? I longed to ask her.

A high-pitched screech echoed down from a room upstairs, and I was starting to get up to go tell Alice off for disturbing Bella when a huge clap of thunder sounded outside. The rainstorm had become far more severe without my ever having noticed the escalation of the sound. The thunder was so loud that the house actually shook from the noise, and Esme leapt up from her seat at Bella's side.

"It's only thunder, Esme," I started to reassure her, wondering how something so trivial could have surprised her. It wasn't like Esme was unused to thunderstorms—she'd certainly heard enough of them in her lifetime.

"No!" Esme squeaked, her eyes huge and round as saucers. "It's Bella… Edward, _she squeezed my finger!_"

Alice slid gracefully into the room, Jasper right on her heels. "I saw something!" "I felt something!" they said at the same time, respectively, looking down at Bella in amazement and joy.

I was already taking Esme's place and wrapping Bella's now-limp hand around my pointer finger. "Alice, is there going to be another thunderclap?" I asked, my voice tense with hope and anticipation. Bella was back to staring blankly, but there was the tiniest flush to her pale cheeks.

"Not like that one," Alice said quietly. "Besides, I think it was the element of surprise more than anything else that did it."

Emmett's booming laugh preceded him into the room, having heard the entire conversation from the garage where he and Rosalie had been working on Jasper's new motorcycle. "I told you so!" he bellowed like a moose. "I told you that a loud surprise would do the trick!"

"Yes, Emmett, we're all duly impressed," Rosalie teased. "Maybe you should take Alice's job, since you seem to be predicting the future now."

I ignored them both. "Alice, Jasper and Esme—describe to me every detail of what you felt and saw. Esme, you first."

"When the thunder came and the vibrations shook the bed, Bella squeezed my finger, like she was afraid and wanted reassurance that someone was there with her," Esme told me, her hands shaking with eagerness. "It was just for the tiniest of seconds, and then it was gone." Esme wrung her hands excitedly.

"She's never liked the rain," I breathed, brushing a short brown hair away from Bella's forehead. "What else?"

Alice spoke up next. "I saw that she would react to the thunder—that's why I screamed, so that you would pull your head out of the clouds in time to notice what was happening in the room. If I hadn't, you would have missed it. You can thank me later."

"Does her future show anything else now?" I queried impatiently.

Alice's eyes closed, and her body became stone for at least three minutes. Finally, she shook herself and lolled against Jasper, looking tired. "I just don't know, Edward. There are multiple futures for her now, and they moved so fast that it was hard to get a feel for anything. It was like it was changing from thought to thought for her. One future was blurry, but the other was clearer in a way. In that future, I saw only darkness." She shrugged. "Don't ask me to explain it, but at least there was _something_ there."

Darkness…but what did that mean?

"All I felt from her was recognition and fear, and then the smallest bit of comfort when she felt Esme's hand in hers," Jasper offered. "I think she knew it was one of us with her, probably from the cold of the skin. But then she sank back into the nothingness. It was strange, though, Edward—as she went back under, she felt both relief _and_ regret."

"But what now?" Esme wondered aloud. "It's not like we can recreate this."

"Maybe not," Jasper agreed, his scarred face thoughtful. "But we know for sure now that Bella's really in there. I think that she's going to come back to us on her own, as soon as she feels safe again. As soon as she believes that reality is better than a world without senses."

"Maybe she just wants to make sure that we won't leave her," Alice said softly.

"She's strong. She'll wake up again, in spite of all of us," Rosalie said, looking straight at me for the first time since our confrontation. I looked back at her without hesitation. I knew from both her thoughts and her eyes that I wasn't forgiven yet, and that it wouldn't be for a long time. But Rosalie was enough reassured by the thought of Bella's eventual recovery that she was able to let me off the proverbial hook…a bit.

"Just wait until your father gets home!" Esme crowed. "Won't he be excited?"

One by one, each member of my family left the room, going about their various businesses. Bella and I were alone. I suddenly felt a powerful draw to Bella's bed, even more powerful than was usual. I went and sat beside her and took her frail hand in mine, but it still didn't seem like enough. "What?" I whispered to her, kissing her fingers. "What do you want, Bella? What can I do to help you? Whatever you want, I promise, I'll do it. Tell me what you want, what you need to wake up, and it's yours."

Then I realized that the feeling wasn't coming from Bella. Something else was urging me; something was calling out for me to notice it. The desire just wouldn't be silenced. Then I realized what the something was, and I crashed instantly to my knees, Bella's hand still held in mine.

Bella wasn't the only one that needed healing.

"Almighty and Everlasting God," I prayed, "preserver of souls, who dost correct those whom Thou dost love, and for their betterment dost tenderly chastise those whom Thou dost receive, we call upon Thee, O Lord, to grant Thy healing, that the soul of Thy servant, at the hour of its departure from the body, may by the hands of Thy holy Angels be presented without spot unto Thee. Amen."

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A/N: There! Little Pride and Prejudice, little Book of Common Prayer, some Emmett tomfoolery….am I good to you guys or what? Please review, I'm kind of nervous about this one…..

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	13. Hiding Place

Disclaimer: If I owned it, it would have been a lot better. Sorry. Just the truth. Snobby truth, but yeah.

A/N: Howdy, folks! Since everybody's been so gracious about reviewing (makes Bluebird as happy as me – she's been singing and chirping quite cheerily about the great response) I decided to go ahead and upload the next chapter.

Btw, speaking of my beloved Bluebird, you guys have GOT to go and read her stories. They're friggin' amazing. I kid you not – she's so smart it's scary. But she's had a ridiculously low number of reviews. Don't make me hold the next chapter hostage, folks, because I will. Go. Read. Review. Make her smile. Happy authors are updating authors! The link to her profile is on my profile page. I made it nice and easy on y'all!

This is another chapter from Bella's pov, and it's very close to Bluebird's heart. She wrote this chapter pretty much by herself. It was originally just a sentence from another chapter I'd written, and she wanted to take it further, so I gave her the reigns and then I tweaked it a very little. It's pretty amazing, giving the Cullens' and, more specifically, Jasper's, perspectives on Bella's catatonic state. Bella's complete lack of self-worth is also seen. Don't forget, Edward told her she wasn't good for him. Her value of herself has been completely destroyed. To an extent, Bella doesn't believe that she has a right to exist. Anyway, y'all leave Bluebird some love, because she's been itching to have this chapter out for weeks now.

We've averaged out at 35 reviews per chapter. Can we get forty? Please?

Oh, and I was thrilled at the response to the last chapter. Not only was everybody unbelievably understanding about having the blatant religion, but I found some fellow Christians! I love it! Thank you, everyone, for your tolerance and maturity. You've raised my opinions of you to astonishing heights.

I hope you enjoy this chapter! Let us know if you do!

Playlist: Give You Back by Vertical Horizon and I Feel Everything by Idina Menzel

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Dreaming… always dreaming…

Breathe wild smell…

Touch the cold skin…

Until … forget that they… are not real.

Never real.

"Good morning, Bella."

Jasper…

He speaks so softly…

The one I knew the least… the one I heard the least in these strange dreams…

"I'm sorry for not coming to talk with you sooner… Even Rosalie can bear it better than I can." A sigh. "Maybe things will get better soon."

Don't… feel guilty… Jasper…

I … am… the weak one… the one who could never….

"Anyway, I…I wanted to talk to you, Bella. I hope you don't mind. There are just some things that have been on my mind now."

I am nothing…

Talk, Jasper.

Bite me…kill me…don't care…just stay.

Don't leave…

Bad things happen…when you... and … everyone… leave…

"I wish – just for once – that you could feel what I feel, Bella. You moving like that for Esme…we're just all so happy now, Bella, even Edward. I can feel _that_."

Chair scrapes against the floor…

Soft, cool fingers hesitantly touch… face….

This… good dream…

Almost as good… as those… with Edward… staying with…

"You see, Bella, Edward has lived his entire life thinking that he knows someone simply because he can hear them…. as if hearing thoughts can explain the fullness of a person…. as if that's ever enough. Dammit, he's always right. And he is… until he's wrong in some huge, disastrous, _cataclysmic_ way. He's like a head disconnected from the body… a time bomb waiting to explode.

"But I'm not Edward. _I_ can feel. I could feel that when he left you behind, it left him empty. He was nearly as empty as you were when we found you. He didn't even feel like the same person when I saw him again in Florida. And I felt the same thing with you… the exact same thing…you weren't real. You weren't Bella."

Voice trails off… whispers now…

Can still hear you… Jasper…

"He has assumed so much during his existence… He assumed that because he's able to understand people's minds that he could understand you, even without the benefit of reading your mind. He assumed that you could never feel as strongly as he does because you weren't a vampire… He assumed so damn much… And I could have _told _him. I could have told him if he had only asked me, if I'd known that he didn't know. I could have told him how strong your feelings were….how much you loved him.

"He probably doesn't know this, Bella, but before we left for Alaska after… after your birthday party, I snuck to your house. I felt… afraid… for you..."

Poor …. Jasper…

Should not… have worried about ….

Not worth the worry….

"But then I couldn't feel anything from you at all… It was the quietest, _emptiest_ pain that I have every felt. It was both there and not-there…. It was the not-there quality of your pain the scared me … so much.

"And then I saw you… again, and you scared me even more. You were like a ghost… Only skin and bone was holding you to that hospital bed. And I could only sit there watching … waiting for you to float away for good.

Voice intense… louder…

"What were you really trying to do, Bella, by hiding away like this… in your own mind, I mean? Edward would like to think that you pulled inside yourself in an attempt to keep your promise to him. It was a way to stay safe… maybe because you didn't trust yourself not to do something drastic had you been awake… and aware. He thinks that this… state, whatever you want to call it, that you're in right now, is just a far more extreme manifestation of your ability to shield your mind… even from him.

"But I wonder if that's true or not… and I know Rosalie and Esme do, too. They understand the kind of desperation that would lead someone to want to leave everything… behind. _They understand_, in a way not even Edward can. And they recognize that same desperation in you that they once felt in themselves.

"And Emmett… He's far more observant than Edward gives him credit for. He's the only one who wasn't really surprised at your … condition when you came to us. It's like he was expecting it, when even Alice wasn't.

"And Carlisle is a scientist… He's seen your medical file. He respects the unfathomable mysteries of the mind… the ways it seeks to protect itself. He can agree with Edward's assumption easily enough, _medically_. But even Carlisle does not doubt the wreck that is lying in this bed right now… Even he wonders what could be hidden in your mind, Bella. He wonders at your true motivations, because he listens to the things his five senses tell him. Carlisle's faith always drives him to believe otherwise, but he wonders. And Alice can see your future… and sees that it's been empty for so long…."

Can you see it, Alice?

Can you see… my nothingness?

"So was that it, Bella? Were you keeping yourself safe, the way Edward thinks? Or were you trying to leave the world behind … and this was the only way you knew how to do it while still keeping your promise to Edward? A completely passive suicide?"

I… am…. nothing….

What is wrong… with trying… to become nothing?

Frustrated… now…. voice… is frustrated…

"And you know what? I know very well that you'll never tell us. I even know why you won't—because then Edward would have to live with the true repercussions of what he did. You'll never tell because you know just as well as I do that saying it would only prove to him that he is the monster he's believed himself to be all along. It would only drive him deep into his own mind, just like you. Catatonic Edward.

"But none of us will stop wondering….Why do you feel such a need to protect yourself? What are you hiding there in your mind, Bella?"

Nothing… hiding _nothing_…

A nonentity.

A soft, frustrated sigh…

"But now…now I feel something from you again…It's not much…but now it's like Edward's come back to himself, too. He smiles, sometimes.

"But its strange…for someone who was so empty before, you're strangely layered now, Bella. I can't quite put my finger on it, and that's very disturbing for me. I … fear… that whatever drove you over the edge the first time could shatter you again. You've been broken, Bella, broken hideously. I don't have to be empathic to know that. What little thing could send you over the edge again?"

Voice firmer now… fiercer…

"I hope he _listens_ to you when you wake up….because if he doesn't, we might lose the both of you…if you go over that edge Bella, then Edward will go, too. You're both far too connected now for that not to be the ultimate outcome."

Voice low… even softer…

"Before I go, Bella, I just… want to say… something…. I'm sorry for being what I am… and I'm sorry that what I am caused this to happen to you. This is all my fault. I know that. It almost would have been better if…

"Oh, Edward! I was just talking to Bella… I'm going to go wrestle with Emmett for a while, give him something constructive to do for a change…"

Nothing to forgive, Jasper… you are…. what you are…

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A/N: So? Did you likey? I certainly did! Leave us some love!


	14. In the Still of the Night

Disclaimer: If I owned it, I would have invented some other things. Like flying cars. I am not whizzing in the air. Ergo, no ownage on my part.

A/N: Hey, folks! I hope you've all been having fabulous weeks. Here's the next chapter of "Ivy Tree", one that I know will make a lot of you very, very happy. It's also one of my favorite chapters simply because of Emmett. I identify a little too well with Emmett, and that probably came out here. If some of you British folks don't understand some of my hillbilly references, let me know and I'll be happy to clarify.

Please enjoy! And review!

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"Edward, I've been thinking…"

I looked up from my book, a dog-eared copy of the _Oresteia_, and found myself looking at Jasper. I could hear him wondering anxiously how much of his earlier conversation I had overheard with Bella. That was a question I didn't want to answer yet, so I played stupid. "You're always thinking, Jasper," I remarked. "What, among the myriad of topics floating around in your brain, do you want to concentrate on now?"

"You can be high and mighty about your mystical mind powers in a minute, Edward," Jasper said cynically as he sat down beside me, capably hiding his relief that I wasn't going to bring up the conversation he really didn't want to discuss with me at all. "_Just hear me out. I've been thinking about Bella a lot lately. I know that you've talked about this with both Esme and Carlisle some, but I was wondering…do you think conversion would heal Bella of this…thing?"_

I blew through my lips in frustration. "Honestly, Jasper, no, I don't think it would work. I just don't think the venom would touch the mind—we've never seen any evidence to suggest that at all. It would heal her body of all its physical problems, sure, but when it comes to the mind, I just don't think that venom's going to cut it…" Jasper was shaking his head in the negative emphatically, trying to get in a word edgewise and failing as I rambled on, mostly to myself. "Oh. That's not what you were thinking? Sorry, didn't mean to run you over…"

"Oh, just read my mind already!" Jasper grumbled. "It's what you always do anyway… Besides it'd be faster than you attempting to be polite and have a real conversation for once."

I listened to Jasper's thoughts… and then I nearly jumped from my chair at the suggestion I found there. "You think the _pain_ would bring her out of this?" I asked incredulously. "Are you _crazy_?"

"I don't like the idea of it any more than you do," Jasper replied hurriedly, his brow furrowed in concentration. "_But still…it makes some sense, doesn't it? Pain like that simply can't be ignored. It might shock her out of the catatonic state. It wouldn't be a pleasant way to wake up to the world, true, but you never know. You bite her, and she wakes up healed and active three days later. All our problems are solved, and Alice is planning a wedding_. _Hopefully_," his mental voice added unintentionally.

"_She's hiding in there, Edward. I can sense that much. We've tried bringing her out gently… maybe pain is the only thing that can touch that different kind of pain…"_

My mind whirled at this—could the pain of transformation possibly bring Bella out of her stupor? I hated the very thought of it—Hi, Bella! I left you behind supposedly for your own good and you tried to deal with it. Then the only way I could selfishly bring you out of your safe place again was to torment you with the worst possible pain in the world, and oh! Please believe that I still love you—but would it possibly work?

I pinched the bridge of my nose, the irritation of the action allowing my thoughts to center on the critical points. How much of the pain of the transformation would Bella be able to experience in the first place? She already didn't react at all to any of the needle pricks Carlisle and I had tried on her fingers and toes in order to test her reflexes…but I knew all too well that needles pricks had nothing on vampire venom.

Could _anything_ be strong enough to veil the pain of conversion?

But then…if the pain didn't shock her out of the state…Bella would be frozen in that state. A vampire body didn't change, and the vampire mind changed only rarely. It would be exponentially harder to bring Bella out of herself once she was stone and bloodless, if not utterly impossible. Would it be worth the risk?

After a few long minutes, during which time these thoughts and more rushed through my brain, I finally answered Jasper. "It's a good thought, Jazz," I said carefully, "but I'm not willing to risk it unless there were no other options left to us. I'm afraid that if we were to try and bring Bella into awareness that way, if the pain didn't work, then she would be frozen like this forever. Only when she was at death's door would I be willing to try something like that, and even then I would have to decide what would be fairer to her."

"_What do you mean by 'fairer to her,' Edward?"_

I ran a hand through my hair at the tenseness of his tone. "What would you choose for Alice, Jasper, if you were in my place? Would you give her a short, painful life that ended in heaven…or an eternity as a physically perfect but soulless vampire? Bella wouldn't even have the intellectual pursuits as the rest of us, if she were unable to leave a bed. How would she feed? Can you force-feed blood to a vampire? If Bella was dying in this state, I would have to make that choice for her. I'm not sure I can make that choice to begin with, but I'm even less sure that I'm willing to risk condemning her to a forever of utter emptiness."

"_I see your point_…" Jasper admitted, his nose wrinkling in frustration. It caused some of his scars to ripple across his face—Alice would have laughed had she seen it. "_I'm glad I'm not in your position_."

"Wish I wasn't either," I said dryly. "But we reap what we sow."

"_Yes…we do…"_ Jasper thought, gazing sadly at Bella's bed.

But before I could hear Jasper's thoughts on what he saw there, I heard Emmett's mind come into the foreground of all the other minds around me. He'd been singing the Brady Bunch theme in Italian constantly all morning, in a blatant attempt to keep me out of his thoughts. I hadn't even realized that he _knew _Italian…

Emmett's rather obvious way of being deceptive was excessively annoying, but I had tried to ignore him for the most part. When he made a mistake, I would hear it—I was sure this all had to do with whatever was keeping him in the forest for hours on end.

Today was the day when he finally goofed up.

Thankfully I was paying attention when Emmett thought gleefully to himself, _"Oh, boy, just wait until Bella gets a load of this…it'll knock her socks off!"_

I was out of my seat in half a millisecond and headed into the woods behind my younger brother. I could only just imagine what Emmett might be doing, all for Bella's apparent "good." The end justifies the means, that was Emmett's personal philosophy. After all, it had worked out well enough in his own life, what with Rosalie justifying the taking away of Emmett's soul in order to have true love and all that.

I made a mental note to myself not to follow in their footsteps.

Emmett heard me following him and foolishly tried to shake me off his track, but I kept up with him easily. After all, I was the fastest in our family. The skill came in handy every once in a while. My brother lead me on a merry chase for what seemed like forever, until he finally decided to just give up and head back for the house, thinking that he would rather me lose my temper there instead of near his secret project. Interesting. He was afraid of my anger. This should be good.

We burst into the living room with an enormous bang as the door hit the wall, Rosalie and Esme rushing in a blur down the stairs to see what was going on. Alice was already curled up on the white leather sofa in a prime viewing area, grinning delightedly at the commotion unfolding.

"All right, Emmett, enough's enough," I said grimly, blocking the exit with my body. I tried to ignore the obvious fact that Emmett was about as big as a house, and far less easily moved. "What are you working on out there in the woods, anyway? You can't hide it from me for all eternity, you know."

Emmett locked his jaw with unusual determination and crossed his massive arms across his chest. "Nope, buddy. It's my idea, and I've worked really hard on it. I'm not saying a word no matter what you say or do."

"Better give up now, Em," chirped Alice, obviously enjoying herself hugely. I could tell from her thoughts that she had orchestrated most of this herself, even though she was still keeping Emmett's part of the deal from me in order to prolong the suspense. "It'll be much the better for you if you tell us here, instead of letting Edward just go off and find your little secret weapon by himself. I can see that one for myself, dear brother, and it doesn't end well for either you _or_ for your new toy."

Emmett clenched his jaw and remained unmoved. I stared at him. He stared back.

Rosalie hid a yawn behind her gracefully perfect hand. "Good Lord, you two, why bother getting so worked up about whatever it is?" she griped. "Nothing, in my opinion, is worth this amount of melodrama."

In unison, all of our heads snapped around as we heard a door open down the hall. Carlisle came out of Bella's room, looking bemused. Emmett and I straightened up a little, very much like human children do when their father comes home and they know they have to hand him a note saying they'd been fighting at school.

"All right, boys, what's going on?" Carlisle asked, eyeing us each individually. I knew from his thoughts that he was enjoying his family acting somewhat normally again, but that he was also missing the uncharacteristic calm that had been over the house lately. "Did Emmett lose a wrestling match with Edward _again_?"

"No!" growled Emmett viciously, his arm muscles flexing tightly as if he longed to prove himself then and there. "And if Edward didn't cheat all the damn time, I would beat him easily! I could squash him with one hand tied behind my back!"

"Untrue, but not the point at the moment," I reminded my brother, unable to hide a brief grin at Emmett's anger. He considered losing a wrestling match a sacrilege comparable to drowning puppies or knocking old people over for their canes. "Carlisle, Emmett was just about to tell me what he's been doing out in the woods that Bella would, according to him, enjoy to no end." I leaned against the doorway and gazed steadily at Emmett, who was presently singing the lyrics to _Grease_ in his mind.

"Emmett?" prodded Esme gently, her golden eyes inquisitive.

Emmett took one look at his mother figure and melted, and in that same instant I understood what he had been doing. I didn't know whether to laugh, be proud, or be just outright annoyed. "Well…with Bella being so off her feed and all, I kept remembering what Ma used to tell us," Emmett said, a touch of his old Tennessean drawl coming back as he remembered his human years. "She used to talk all the time about how a swig of good whiskey would cure anything. Edward doesn't believe it, with all his hoity-toity _medical_ study and all, but it used to really work. I remember Ma curing my little brother of ague with just one spoonful. Sure, he was a little tipsy for a couple hours, but then he got well real fast. And then another one of my brothers got bit by a rattler—"

"Emmett, spare us the countless brother stories," said Rosalie witheringly, even though her eyes were twinkling with something very like humor. "Just get to the point, please. I'd like to get back to work on my car at some point within the next decade. You had enough brothers to start your own football team."

"Sorry, Rosie," Emmett apologized sheepishly. "Anyway, I knew Edward would never agree with what Ma told me, because he's an idiot like that," he added just a little too happily, "so I decided to go ahead and do it by myself."

"How very _Little Red Hen_-ish of you, Emmett," said Carlisle with a smile that he quickly smothered in order to keep Emmett from getting angry. "Pray tell, continue."

Only too happen to continue be the center of attention, Emmett persisted in telling his story. "Anyway, I remembered that Bella relaxed and stuff when Alice laughed. I didn't want to do anything too awful, Edward, I swear it, man. I just wanted to make her laugh. I know you guys think I'm a grade A goof-off, which I am, but I'm still pretty attached to Bella myself, you know. I miss her tripping over nothing but air and starting fights with everyone without even meaning to and making Edward almost…well, not human, I guess, but at least somewhat livable." He grinned in my direction, unaware of the wisdom in his words. "She took you and changed you from a grouchy hundred year old geezer and made you into…whatever it is that you are now." He waved a meaty hand airily at me, narrowly avoiding knocking over a lamp as he did so.

There was a curious lump in my throat—a vampire had no business having a lump in his throat. I'd had no idea that Emmett felt like that about me and Bella…granted, I knew that he was one of my supporters when it came to my relationship with her, but I hadn't known that he felt so strongly about wanting to help her. I'd been wrong to put him down so easily. Emmett was just a big kid in a lot of ways, but I guessed there was more maturity there than I had previously given him credit for.

A huge, childlike grin spread across Emmett's face as he finally got to reveal his genius plan. "I've been working for days on…well, on my very own still. I'd almost forgotten how to make one in all this time of just sleeping in high schools, but a little research on the Net, and bang! I commenced to work, and I've got a still any old revenue agent would be proud to raid. Too bad those guys aren't really around anymore—this place could use some action of the governmental sort." I could almost see reruns of _The Dukes of Hazard_ going through his brain as he talked. It was far too easy to envision Emmett driving a car with a Confederate flag on the hood… Jasper would undoubtedly be his stalwart companion in just such an enterprise.

Emmett shuffled his gigantic feet, and then looked around hopefully at the family for their approval. "I figured that if anything in the world could make Bella laugh again, it would be Edward finding out that big old Emmett—the goofball brother—had kept a still hidden from Mr. Freaky Brains. That's the kind of manipulation Bella used to enjoy… I wanted to give some of it back to her. _And to you, Edward,"_ he thought to me privately._ "If Bella laughed again, then so would you. I've missed that, bro."_

In his mind, I could see Emmett's still, and it really did have a unique kind of beauty to it. He'd obviously put a lot of time and care into his secret project, things that Emmett didn't usually have the patience to do. He'd sacrificed his free time in a misguided, but heartfelt, attempt to make Bella better again. The thought of Bella laughing again was…intoxicating… I hadn't realized that anyone had missed that blithe, uninhibited laughter as much as I had, and they truly hadn't. But Emmett, who so appreciated the joyous side of life, would have been certain to have missed this quality in my girlfriend. He would have missed what Bella's laughter did to me. He might have come in second place with me for missing her laughter, then.

I might have to let Emmett win a race or something sometime, just to thank him for caring so much…no, not a race. My pride, absurd though it was, couldn't take that much of a blow. Maybe a wrestling match…

Finally I said, "Thanks, Emmett. I'd like to see your still sometime, if you wouldn't mind showing it to me. It looks like…" I struggled to find an appropriate term. "Well, it really looks like something."

Emmett beamed. "Sure thing. You don't have enough appreciation for us hillbillies, Edward. We're pretty smart when it comes to the vices of life."

"Oh, I'm positive that that's true, Em," I agreed, really fighting a smile now. Sighing, I started walking back to Bella's room, feeling warmed by my family's caring. Alice got up and danced behind me, and somehow the entire Cullen clan ended up crammed in Carlisle's little study that he shared with Bella. It felt comforting to be like this again with one another…normal. If only it were possible that Bella could share in this moment with us—then our family would finally be complete again.

"So, Edward! When do I get to use the still, huh? I was supposed to make Bella laugh, you know, and I seem to remember some drunks laughing pretty hard in my day," Emmett commented eagerly, rubbing his beefy hands in a way that would have caused any hardened criminal to run crying for his mommy.

"Emmett, I love what you did. Really, in a hick sort of way, it was quite generous and amazingly sophisticated. But you know very well for yourself that I can't let you give Bella your half-crap moonshine!" I said exasperatedly.

"But Ma used ter say…" howled Emmett in protest.

"Maybe you should give some of that moonshine to Edward instead, Em," interrupted Rosalie with a sarcastic glint in her eye. "It just might cure all his ills."

Emmett's boisterous laughter filled the room for just a moment; right up until Alice leapt pell-mell onto his back and clamped her tiny hand firmly over his mouth. It was a stretch to fit her hand over his face, but she managed.

"Alice! What in the—" Esme started to ask.

"Quiet!" commanded Carlisle in a tone only vampires could have heard as he leaned over Bella's bed, his hand at her wrist.

Something felt different in the room all of a sudden…the feeling was familiar, but totally unexpected. What was it?

Then I heard it.

The breathing…so steady…so quiet and peaceful.

"She's asleep," breathed Alice, her wide, butterscotch eyes darting around the room and through the future without discrimination. "Really asleep, Edward, I mean. She's out of the catatonic state!"

I looked quickly over at Bella's bed. She had relaxed out of her tight curl and was sprawled all over the bed, her shortened hair spilling messily over the pillow. She looked alive again … real.

In her sleep, Bella suddenly sighed. It was the deep, relaxed sigh of a human girl at rest…and it was _soulful_. I'd never heard anything more beautiful in all my long life.

Jasper was suddenly holding me up by my elbows—otherwise, I would have been on the floor. "Steady, private—things are finally going right.

"I can feel it too, Edward. She's feeling very peaceful…I think she might even be dreaming. There's something _there_ now." Jasper's face was alight with a brilliant happiness I'd only seen there a few times before. It was just like his face when he'd realized that we would take him and Alice into our family. It was very like the face that I'd only seen in memories, the memories that told me what his face looked like when he saw Alice holding out her hand for him on a rainy day in Philadelphia. "I can feel _her_ again. Bella's there now. She's not hiding any longer. She's as clear as anybody else in this room to me."

Carlisle looked up from his work at Bella's bedside, his face both puzzled and happy. "I have to admit that I have absolutely no medical explanation for this turn of events. Why now? What brought her back to us now of all times?" He looked over at Jasper and me, and then at Alice where she was still perched on Emmett's back like a canary on a rhinoceros. "Jasper? Edward? Alice? Do you have any theories at all?"

Alice shrugged. "I've got nothing for you. This wasn't a future, decision driven kind of thing, Carlisle. It just…happened."

"I really can't say right now, Carlisle," Jasper murmured, looking suddenly nervous at being asked to give an opinion. "Maybe she just finally decided that she was safe, and that we weren't going to leave her."

I just stared at the bed blankly. According to Rosalie's thoughts, I looked like a fool. Fine. Like I cared. _Bella was awake! _It was real! Everything would be all right! It was too much to take in…

Nodding thoughtfully at what my siblings had told him, Carlisle gazed back down at Bella's relaxed body on the bed. "Well, the next step in this is obvious. We have to let her sleep as long as she can. Her body needs to recover—it's been a long, hard road for her. After that, I have no idea what should be done." He looked around for guidance, and his eyes settled on my sister. "Alice? Do you see when she'll wake up? That might give us some ideas as to how we should proceed."

Alice finally drifted down from Emmett's back as lightly as a feather floating on the wind, and nodded so fast that her black spikes of hair flopped all over the place in her exuberance. "Yes—I can see her now, just as clearly as I ever did. She's going to sleep for exactly thirteen hours, twenty-six minutes and seventeen seconds."

"Excellent. Thank you, Alice. With that in mind, everybody but Edward needs to leave the room now, please," Carlisle ordered kindly in a soft undertone. "Quiet though vampires may be, I don't want to run the risk of waking Bella when she needs this rest so badly. Knowing you lot, Emmett will end up chasing a grizzly bear in here just to keep us all entertained, and that kind of behavior always ends with Rosalie throwing something at him. Either that or Alice will bounce on the bed to speed things up. It's far better just to prevent that kind of thing from happening at the beginning, so march, troops."

At the quiet moans of my siblings, Carlisle lifted a consoling hand. "We have the rest of our lives to be with Bella—let's give her this time to recover, and let Edward have some time to be alone with her. They'll have a lot to discuss, I'm sure."

Did we ever. Part of me dreaded the coming conversation, but a larger part of me rejoiced at finally having the chance to have everything out in the open. I couldn't wait for the opportunity to redeem myself in Bella's eyes… But I couldn't bear to think what might happen if she didn't accept my apology. How could she? What right did I have to hope for grace from her when I'd hurt her so badly? What would these next few hours hold? That thought just made me feel even weaker.

After Jasper had kindly helped me to a chair, he followed the rest of my family out the door. Through Jasper's gift, I could hear the emotions that each member of my family was feeling. Esme's joy was nearly overwhelming, causing a smile to cross my face, relieving my nervousness for a moment. Rosalie was feeling strong relief, and Emmett was experiencing a mixed amount of happiness and chagrin. The chagrin was because he hadn't gotten a chance to test out his moronic whiskey hypothesis, I'm sure. Jasper was odd. He felt…liberated, for some reason. Carlisle was rejoicing both as a doctor and as a father.

And Alice…Alice's emotions were probably the closest of all to my own.

When the room was finally quiet and empty, I crept over to Bella's side and knelt on the floor beside her. "Bella?" I said, so softly that there was no danger of waking her from her natural slumber. "Bella, it's me. It's Edward. I love you, Bella. I promise you that I will never leave you again."

I looked at Bella's face in its childlike peacefulness, and knew that I would never get tired of seeing it. Forever wasn't long enough to hold her. Forever wasn't long enough to love her.

If only we could have forever…

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A/N: You have three choices. 1.) You don't review. I'm very sad and I don't update quickly. 2.) You don't review. I'm very sad and I don't update quickly. 3.) You review. I'm happy. I update.

I'd review. But that's just me. Thanks bunches, my peeps!


	15. Pendulum

Disclaimer: Don't own it, never did. If I did, I would be on a shopping spree in New York as we speak.

A/N: Hiya, folks! Dang, you guys blasted the cap of reviews on that last chapter! Sixty! I could barely believe it! Don't suppose we could replicate that, huh, could we, huh huh huh???

I'm going out of town for a few days, so I thought I would put up this next chapter as a little happy for you guys. I hope you enjoy it – it's Bella's perspective on what happened with Emmett and her subsequent waking-up-ness. The dream was almost exclusively Bluebird's idea, so y'all leave her some love as well.

Have awesome Wednesdays! I know, that rarely happens, Wednesday being the middle of the week and all. Hence my kindness in updating! Don't you guys just love me?

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Trapped in nothingness, I wandered…

Things becoming clearer, though…. No light…not quite…

But hope.

Sometimes it felt like they were so near…

Edward…no…don't think of him…

Alice…Alice…please, laugh again….remind me of joy…

Please….

I miss you, Alice…. I love you….

Esme's soft voice…Carlisle's gentle hands…

Don't leave me…

Please….

Edward's lullaby…. Not real…never … real…but I love it….

If this is unreality, let me dream forever….

Never let me wake.

Please…

The tension gone… don't have to hold … together anymore.

Always worthless, Bella… don't forget…. never forget…don't hope.

_You're not good for me, Bella._

Not good enough for him….

Never enough…never enough to keep him. To hold him.

But I hear them! Emmett…Jasper…Alice…

"Hey, uh…I just wanted to say that I'm kind of sorry about the whole unfortunate jello incident earlier. How did I know it would dump all over Alice's hair? Boy, was she mad! At least it wasn't Rose… Alice _might_ forgive me. Someday. Worked pretty well as a hair gel, though, I must say." A loud snicker. "I wanted you to hear us all laugh again, Bella… I thought it would make you happy. Please wake up soon. We need you tripping over things again. The family can't rely on me for comedic interludes forever."

A hearty laugh… Emmett…

I hear _him_….

Die here in the dark….

Don't want to die…. not anymore.

Nothingness…stay here….safe.

Humans are humans… and… vampires are vampires…

The two do not … mix…

This is what he tried to tell… me… that day….

_I infuriate myself. The way I can't seem to keep from putting you in danger. My very existence puts you at risk. Sometimes I truly hate myself. I should be stronger._

Fear…

He _loved_ me then…but not for long enough…

Never enough to hold him…

He's here now…I've heard him.

He hasn't left me yet…

Yet.

_I'm…_tired_ of pretending to be something I'm not, Bella. I am not human. I've let this go on much too long, and I'm sorry for that._

Where is the… answer?

Was the love a charade? Was it ever real?

_I don't seem to be strong enough to stay away from you, so I suppose that you'll get your way…whether it kills you or not._

Pendulum swings…don't know what to believe…

I don't know! Don't know!

Maybe… never knew…

Alice's laugh…Esme's voice…Carlisle's hands…Edward's lullaby…Jasper's remorse… Emmett's jokes… Rose's pain….

Maybe they are here… with me… still…

Please…

Maybe they'll stay this time…

But I'm … only human… and so weak…

But I'm not alone anymore.

Haven't left me yet…

Back and forth… back and forth…never ending…

Which to believe…

He hasn't left me yet.

The key….

With some kind of silent, mental gasp, I felt myself shake free. I felt very disoriented, as if I'd been drowning slowly in cold water for a very… very long time. I never could seem… to breathe…I didn't know which end was up, or what was real… Were the figures I felt… the words I heard… just hallucinations created by air deprivation? What had happened to me? It didn't matter, though. The nothingness is gone…. The weight has vanished from my chest….

And in that absence of weight, I dreamed.

In the dream, I was in absolute darkness. I could see nothing…but I could _feel_. I felt cool marble under my fingers, on my face. The darkness was oppressive, but also so safe…. I could never see someone leave me again in this darkness…. I could hold on to the hand that was on my skin.

It was his skin, I was sure of that.

I felt air on my face… and it had the same wild, intoxicating scent of Edward's breath. He was near me here. His voice was all around me like a blanket, and it was saying the most beautiful things. "I love you, Bella…. I promise you that I will never leave you again," he said in my dream. His velvet voice was exactly as I'd remembered it sounding in the days when he'd loved me. Oh, if only if what he was saying were true! But here, in the dream at least, it was true.

I heard other voices then, the voices of my mother, my father …brothers and sisters… my surrogate family. They could go on talking forever, as long as they never left me.

There was the strangest feeling in the fabric of that dream that told me that if I took even one small step, I would shatter, or be engulfed in flames. But it didn't matter. Their voices, and his touch, kept me safe. I sighed, knowing that I was finally home. Darkness didn't matter. Sensation was far better than my eyes at the moment, and I would far rather have total and frightening darkness than ever have to see my own worthlessness again.

The pendulum had swung toward reality, for better or for worse. Now I had to face whatever that reality held…

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A/N: It's that little button right down there….come on, you can do it….push the button….TAKE THE FREAKIN' RED PILL!


	16. Please

Disclaimer: Don't own it. Don't sue. The end.

A/N: Here you guys go! It's the one you've all been waiting for! I want to see MAJOR reviewage on this one! I mean it, like, seventy reviews. Let's break the record, y'all!

Ahem.

Anyway, this chapter actually has quite a few playlist selections. First, there's _Stay_ by Little Big Town, _Far Away_ by Nickelback and _Unbeautiful_ by Leslie Roy (suggested by Alaya Parson. Major kudos, dear!).

This chapter is dedicated to futureimpending for all of her cool messages.

Seriously, folks. REVIEWAGE!!!! GALORE!!!!!

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I felt the soft blankets beneath my fingers as I moved restlessly across the bed. It was too quiet… too dark. Where am I? _Where am I?_

Confusion… everything is hazy.

I don't know where I am….

Pain pieced me as memory returned. No. Edward was gone. He'd left me in the woods… I was only human. I'd never expected anything else. If only there was some way to escape the _pain_…he would not be waiting for me at school. He was tired of waiting for me…

I would never see him again.

Please… let me see… him…

Please….

My hands picked weakly at the blanket…. what was it that I was remembering? I must be in the woods…. Fractured voices…pain, sounds, confusion, memories.

Can't remember the order of my memories… which came first? It doesn't really matter… The only thing that matters is that Edward is…

Slices of time, broken into jagged pieces very like what remained of my heart. One by one, these impressions flashed through my mind.

I'd been in the dark… lost…. I remembered conversations and vague impressions of things in those strange dreams…doctors, nurses, Renee, nothingness ….

What had happened? Was any of it real?

I couldn't open my eyes.

Can't face it…

Don't think… don't feel… don't remember…

Please… don't let me have to face the possibilities of what might be before me…

I can't face the day without Edward. Maybe the day would contain more insanity, more indescribable sensations…

Please let me just go back to sleep…

_Close thine eyes, little child_…

Renee's lullaby ….

Please let me … forget… him…

_Rest warm and safe in mine arms, little child_…

Please let me… go…

_Touch the bright, bright world in the morning new, little child_….

I want to go home… please…

_Close thine eyes, little child_…

Please…home…

Maybe there the world can stop spinning. Maybe there I will never have to experience pain again. Maybe there I can disappear into nothingness…again…

_Close thine eyes… little child…_

I whimpered softly.

"Bella?" The whisper barely reached my ear.

I knew that voice.

I stilled, afraid to curl around, to clutch my knees in a way that felt so safe, so familiar… afraid to breathe...

What had I done? Where was I? _Who_ was I… really?

And then I smelled it. It was that wild, sweet… indescribable scent…

Edward.

_Was it possible? _

Was he here with me now? With _me_?

And I stopped breathing… afraid that any movement would send him running away from me… again. I couldn't watch that, not again.

Please be here…

Please let me be enough for you this time…

Please, stop me from being human…

"Are you … really here … with me?" I murmured, my words slurring through the fog of my mind. I felt so weak…

Can't move… can't talk… can't understand what is….

"Yes, Bella. It's me…it's Edward. Oh, Bella, I love you so much." The words were halting. Not because the speaker was hesitant, but because he was unable to speak. I could tell that much…the usually velvet voice was rough.

Please don't leave…

With my eyes still tightly closed, then, I moved my arm slowly… so slowly. It crept across the soft bedspread until I felt it. The pain around my heart eased as my trembling, human hand touched his cool skin again. I felt so weak, but I didn't want him to leave before I had touched him again… after so long.

And by moving maybe I could convince him that I was strong after all.

It was hard work, but I managed to lift my hand up into the air … searching. I felt hot tears slide down my face as my fingers stroked his cheek so softly, so cautiously, until I felt his hand cup my own and hold it tightly against his face.

Please…

I stilled, afraid to shatter his momentary, unthinking gentleness into the contempt that I saw in my nightmares. He would hate me again… soon. It was inevitable.

I was human.

Maybe if I was very still, it would take him longer to pull away from me.

I sighed softly…

Please don't leave me again…

"Bella… it's me." I could hear a small moan leave Edward's lips as he felt the warmth of my humanity against his face.

Please don't run from me again….

Please… stay with me. I'll do anything, become _anythin_g.

Just stay.

His voice came rough at first, and then he cleared his throat. "Bella… If I could do or say anything that I thought would make you forgive me for what I did, I would do it now… Oh, my Bella—just stay with me. Forgive me."

There was never anything to forgive. It wasn't his fault that I was frail… only a temporary distraction for him.

"I forgive you, Edward," I muttered woodenly. "You never … needed my forgiveness. But you … didn't have to come back … just for me."

The words stuck in my throat… Why was it so hard to speak?

"Of course I had to come back," Edward protested.

I know you feel guilty, Edward… Just like Jasper…

Please don't feel guilty….

Please.

My hand trembled against his cheek.

I wish he had never seen me so frail. I had to be strong…

Please be strong….

I had never wanted an audience for my pain.

New fears… always new fears….

What would that sight of me have done to him? He was always so paranoid, believing that his existence alone would ruin the entire world. So silly…

I couldn't let him stay with me just because I needed him. He shouldn't stay with me for the wrong reasons….

He needed to be free.

"Edward," I whispered, my voice hoarse. "Please… I don't want you to feel… guilty… about what happened to me. You are _not_ responsible for how I've acted."

His hand trembled against mine.

I hurried on, now, hoping that it wouldn't take him too long to feel better and leave me again. I would find rest then, after he was gone.

Can't survive this time...

"Please, Edward, I need you to realize that it's not your fault, none of it. I don't want you to feel like … you have to come and rescue me whenever … I'm … just not strong enough. You've been doing that ever since we met …" My laugh whispered out.

Just say it…

Be strong…just this once.

"Tyler's van… Port Angeles… James. It's a hopeless trap that surrounds my life, Edward, and I … don't want you to get caught in it, not again … never again."

Stay with me … please … even after I say this…

"Please don't try to save me again."

His hand was suddenly still on my cheek. The only sound in the room was my shallow breathing.

"Bella, why would you say that?" he asked. "_You are my life_. I didn't come for you because I felt _guilty_. I came because I should never have left you in the first place. I came because I wanted to wake you up and tell you that… before ....before…"

He gasped, an audible lump in his throat, and went silent, but I could easily finish his sentence.

Before I died…

That was what I had wanted in the end, and I knew I had come close…. so close.

I felt him shudder. "I didn't want you to go another moment thinking … that I didn't love you."

"Oh, Edward, what should I believe? I was never good enough… I don't want you to feel guilty, but I can't believe lies from you, either. Not now… not after…"

A cold finger against my lips stopped the flow of my words. "Bella, what have I done? How could I have undermined your love so easily? How could _you_ have allowed it to happen?" he said angrily. "You used to argue with me so fiercely about being turned into an immortal. I thought you knew that I loved you. And I wanted it, Bella … I still want it more than I've ever wanted anything else before in my life. The idea of keeping you with me forever…I can't imagine life being any better than that. I suppose I never made it clear to you why I was refusing your request. I was only refusing for the sake of your soul. You've always been good enough for me, Bella. In fact, you are far, far _too_ good for me."

Edward shifted position so that he could be closer to my face, the sheets rustling as he leaned closer to me.

Nothing was making any sense….

Why … was I ... so confused?

"Listen to me, because I'm telling you the truth now. It was _me_ that wasn't good enough for _you_. I love you, Bella. The moment that you cease to be, so will I. My life is wrapped up in yours irrevocably, and I wouldn't change that even if I could.

"Not guilt, Bella. Oh, God… never guilt…I didn't come because of guilt. Love, Bella …. I love you. I came because I love you."

Tears streamed more slowly down my face, but I made no sound, no other movement. I couldn't go on without asking anymore…. however much it might hurt me in the end, I had to know.

"Why, Edward?" My voice broke on his name. "Why did you have to leave me… all alone … if you really did love me? Why did you have to leave me in that horrible way? If you had only told me why…"

His voice came then… burning…I could hear him on fire. He sounded like he was being tortured. I knew what it was like. I'd been tortured, too, by the very same memories. I had been lost within the same flames.

Edward leaned his forehead against mine, but cautiously, as if he were afraid again that I might shatter.

"I thought I knew so many things, Bella," Edward confessed, the barest hint of human vulnerability in his voice. "Jasper said it the best, I think... Because I can hear the thoughts of others, I'm usually right about situations… motivations… intentions….and I was arrogant. I was so stupid, Bella, and I'm so sorry. I underestimated you and your feelings shamefully, and you've proved me wrong over and over again. You told me even then, quite clearly. I just wasn't listening to you.

"I thought that if you undervalued your soul, then I had to be responsible enough to keep it safe… and pure. I thought that you could only have the vaguest idea of the choices involved in becoming immortal…in being with me in this life. By pulling you into my world, I was forcing you to make a choice that you never really should or could. I thought by doing what I did that I could keep you safe…."

Say it, Edward… please, say it…

"I left because I thought I knew what you needed… what you wanted. I thought I knew what was best, and I was wrong." He laughed, and it wasn't a happy laugh. "I very nearly destroyed you, and me, in the most hideous way possible. I can't even fathom the pain if I hadn't come in time, if you had really…" He stopped himself again. He didn't want to think of it any more than I did, of the near miss that my life and sanity had made.

The silence stretched for a long time. I couldn't speak. I didn't want to force him to say anything that he didn't want to, and he'd always gotten more out of me by saying idiotic things that would infuriate me into speech against my will. Whatever he said now, whatever he told me, it would be his own thoughts, and not said out of a desire to comfort me or offer me empty promises.

"Bella…" I nudged his face encouragingly when he stopped. He gulped, and kept going. "I have to confess it. I betrayed you. I betrayed our love in leaving in the way that I did. Rosalie helped me to see that, actually. I was so _blind_… You showed me in so many ways, in so many words and actions – if I had only been able to see it – that you loved me. You were _always _enough for me. You were always good for me."

My silent tears rolled down my face faster. "How can I be sure that this isn't all another dream? I've had so many…"

A chuckle that I remembered came to my ear. "If you can't believe my words, Bella, then believe this."

I felt his lips on my cheek … then… on my hair…

And then they were on my lips. I couldn't fight him, and I certainly didn't want to. I needed him—and this sensation of _living_—too much.

This kiss was far more real than anything in my life had been since the day I'd been flung over a dining room table. His lips moving with mine…it was a miracle. He was extraordinarily gentle, as if I was spun glass beneath his hands, but I could feel his eagerness, too. I kissed him back, yearning, and wishing with everything within me that I could believe him.

If he left me again now, at least I would die with the memory of his taste and the remembrance of his cool lips on mine one last time….

Instead of watching him leave me in the woods.

"Bella… I love you," he whispered so softly when he finally pulled free so that I could breathe.

I knew then. I _knew_.

He loved me.

Somehow impossibly, Edward loved me. This wasn't a dream.

I was enough for him, somehow. Maybe not good _enough_, but enough for him to love. He loved me as I loved him.

He loved me possibly even enough to leave, if he thought it was best. Maybe now, he would love me enough to stay, because it _was_ best.

How miraculous…

I felt a smile touch my face for the first time. In this new existence where my body was so frail, my mind felt far stronger. In that nothingness in which I'd lived, I'd faced every kind of fear and terror that there was. I'd been forced to see things and learn what to believe. I knew now what reality truly was, and the reality was that Edward loved me. To him, I had always been good enough.

"In so many ways I've forgotten what it was like to be human," Edward admitted to me as he felt acceptance enter my gestures. "And I really should have known… I have been a part of countless lives through the thoughts of those around me. I even tried to lose myself in those thoughts after I left you behind. I thought it would be easier than living with what I'd done. You'd think that would have taught me about humanity, but no one could have prepared me for you… You have … a deep, unshakable strength. My biggest mistake, after leaving you, was in underestimating you, Bella. You're so strong, so sure of what you know and feel and think. I missed that because I couldn't hear it for myself. I didn't trust you, I suppose. I should have talked with you, and not just assumed that because I can hear thoughts I knew what you wanted… needed… thought… felt."

I was never really strong… Edward… I am not even strong enough now to talk about those dark days trapped in my own mind…

But all will be well. The telling of those days will keep until some brighter day.

I stroked his cheek again. He lay down on the bed next to me and slipped his arms carefully beneath me so that he could hold me close. I relaxed next to his cool skin. "Bella…what are you thinking about right now, sweetheart?" he asked, his voice strained. From happiness, I think, at both holding me and getting to ask the old, familiar question of me again. That sentence was one of the catchphrases of our relationship.

I smiled up gently at him, and then tucked my head firmly under his chin. "I'm thinking about how happy I am," I sighed, replete. "I believe you, Edward. Somehow, and I don't know how, I trust in this. I believe that you love me. It's enough. I feel…safe, for the first time in so long."

He held me tighter as a response to his joy, although he was still very, very careful with me. "I love you, Bella. I always have and I always will. You will always be safe with me. Feel secure in our love—it will never end."

I believed him, but I wanted to see him again now. It had been so long since I'd seen his perfection. Seeing him would remind me of my own frailty, I knew that well enough on my own… but maybe if I watched his face when he _said_ that he loved me, it would make it even more real, more solid in my mind and heart.

Cautiously, I opened my eyes.

So odd …

Something was wrong…very, very wrong.

Everything still dark… so dark….

Thoughts were stilted….that was safer…more familiar now, when yet again nothing made sense.

Sounds … still slightly skewed in my mind and ears…

The darkness had followed me…

I know…

Please… tell me the truth…

"Edward," I said carefully. "Could you turn on the light or something? I can't see anything!" I stroked his cheek with my thumb and whispered, "I want to see your face again. It's been so long."

Please let me see his face….

Please….

"What do you mean, Bella?" Edward's voice was suddenly very controlled, but I could hear soft undercurrents of panic in it. "The light _is_ on."

I stilled.

"Bella, what is it? Can't you see me? I'm right here!"

"Edward," I whispered softly, my free hand clenching into a fist that shook with my emotions as I tried desperately to focus, to find some beacon of light in the shrouding darkness. "Edward, I can't see a thing."

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A/N: Who saw that one coming? Come on, admit it. NOBODY saw that one! MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Enjoy the cliffie! The faster you review, the faster I update!


	17. Consequences

Disclaimer: Don't own it. If I did, I would be working on a deadline and you guys wouldn't have to wait so long.

A/N: Hey, folks! No complaints on the wait for this chapter – it's eighteen pages long on Word! It should keep you happy for a while.

I forgot to give Bluebird her shout-out for the last chapter. That chapter was more of a group effort than any of the others before. We rewrote that thing about three dang times. But I think the result was worth the work! This chapter, however, was pretty much entirely my creation (which means it's a lot less intellectual and a lot more sarcastic…), so please leave me some lovely little reviews! They make my day!

All the times Edward calls Bella "sweetheart" is dedicated to PrincessFerdinand. We agree that it isn't used enough. Check out her stories, btw, they're great!

While I am sorry that so many of you didn't seem to like the idea of Bella being blind, I hope you'll stick with the story. I like the idea of there being a physical remnant of Edward's betrayal. In the book, I felt like Bella returned far too quickly to normality. Edward got let off the hook a lot more easily than I would have liked. I don't see how somebody who has been so deeply hurt as Bella was could have had so little trouble recovering again. Let's not forget her physical changes as a result of Edward's leaving her. That sort of thing stays with a person. Besides, the blindness in this story is going to be part of a larger plot, so just hang in there, please, huh? It would be much appreciated!

All right, I'll shut up now and let y'all get to the story. And remember, folks, review, review, review! 

Toodles!

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Everything had been so perfect. We were here, together again. Bella was safe, and she finally believed that I really and truly loved her. I'd never been happier in my life before—not when I'd realized I wasn't the lone power freak anymore when Alice had come, not when Carlisle found the love of his love, and not even when I'd realized that my being a vampire didn't matter to Bella and that my love for her was truly requited.

Why, oh, why did the sky have to fall down on us _now_? Hadn't she paid enough already for my selfishness and stupidity and underestimation of her feelings? Where was the _justice,_ the grace that Carlisle believed existed? Why couldn't I be the one to suffer for her, instead of her suffering for my mistakes yet again?

With the keenness of my vampire sight, I watched the knuckles on Bella's hand turn white as she gripped the sheet between her fingers, her frighteningly empty brown eyes scanning the room frantically as she searched for my face. Her other hand trembled against my cheek as she traced my features, trying to determine that I really was with her, that she wasn't alone. She wasn't lying. I knew that quite well. Bella couldn't lie. Then could it be true? Was it possible?

I needed help, and I needed it now. I didn't know how to handle this.

On second thought, I didn't _want_ to handle it at all. There had been times when I had cursed being forever saddled with the "child" status in the eyes of the world, when I had tired of being told, "well, I'll need to speak to your father" or "why don't you call your mother and ask her?" I was sick to death, no pun intended, of being treated like I wasn't responsible enough to care for myself, that I lacked the necessary maturity that adulthood required. It was laughable for me at times—imagine, me, Edward, who was older than most of the human beings in the world in which I lived, incapable of making simple decisions for myself!

But I was quite happy to be able to retreat into a corner and let the "adult" take care of matters for me now.

"Carlisle?" I called softly in the direction of the backyard where my family was waiting politely to be called. The idea had been that with them somewhat out of the vicinity, Bella and I could have some semblance of privacy during our reunion. I was working hard to keep my voice steady and smooth as I called for my father's aid. Carlisle would make it all right. He _had_ to!

Still, though, no one would know of my childish desperation from my voice. Jasper would know, of course, but he would never tell anyone. He shared the same ethics with me—since both of us knew far more than what people would ordinarily choose to tell us, we were overly sensitive about protecting the privacy of our family whenever it could possibly be done. I was grateful for that rule now, since I didn't want my voice to portray my emotions. I didn't want Bella to sense my panic with that too-sharp intuition of hers, to feel that I couldn't fix this for her. She didn't need to be more afraid—she was so weak already. Her heart was already beating faster than was wise, and I just couldn't exacerbate that. "Carlisle, could you please come here for a moment?" I added, making my meaning perfectly clear.

In Esme's flustered and confused thoughts, I watched as Carlisle's head snapped up at my call and cast his wife a quick look of concern, and possibly…fear? He then proceeded to run with all his speed into the house, utterly ignoring the lightning questions that were being tossed at him by the rest of my family. My astute ears listened to him swinging agilely around the corner of the hall by one hand before hurtling to a controlled stop just outside Bella's door so that he wouldn't startle her with his hasty entrance. The whole thing took far less than a second.

Carlisle, as was typical of him, courteously knocked twice on the door before entering, his eyes immediately going to our forms on the narrow bed. I knew that he was trying to see for himself what the problem might be before he was tainted by our words, something that happened far too often with doctors. They would be led astray by their patients' beliefs and would miss crucial clues for the correct diagnosis.

Carlisle knew that whatever was wrong had to be something big, for hardly anything would cause me to call him in when he knew full well just how much I wanted to be alone with Bella at the moment.

"Bella—it's truly wonderful to see you again, my dear. You've been much missed by all of us. Welcome back." Carlisle's warm voice said this with all the sincerity in the world to the girl he saw as his third daughter before he turned to me. "You called me, Edward?" he asked mildly, no trace of his frenzied race to the room audible in his voice.

I glanced over at Bella to see if she was going to say anything for herself, but she was biting her lip between her teeth in a grim determination to keep silent while her face was otherwise smoothed of all emotion. She obviously wasn't going to say anything for the moment. Did she not trust her own voice to keep her emotions hidden? I didn't like the bleak expression her face wore now, though—I couldn't read what she was thinking at all. It also made me afraid that she might slip back into nothingness rather than deal with this latest trial. Would this be too much for her to bear?

But Carlisle was waiting for an answer, and the faster we got down to work, the faster we could fix whatever new thing was wrong with her. Not even a hapless Fate would force this desecration on Bella, not after all she'd been through already.

"Yes, Carlisle," I answered after only half a second of silence thanks to the speed of my vampire mind. "Sorry to disturb you, but something seems to be wrong with Bella's eyes…" I faltered after that, trying to decide how to say this without sounding absurdly alarmist. I could guarantee that my family was shamelessly eavesdropping on this conversation, and I didn't want them to panic anymore than I wanted Bella to—I could only handle so much drama at a time, and their emotions would be sure to cause a myriad of reactions. "She's having some trouble seeing," I finished lamely.

Carlisle's brow furrowed as he strode forward, his handsome face anxious for a brief second before he'd regained his glibly perfect bedside manner. "Seeing what? Is she having trouble seeing things that are far away or close up? Or is she having trouble focusing?" He pulled a small, red flashlight from his tan jacket pocket and shone its light into Bella's eyes one after the other, watching closely for the pupils' reaction to the visual stimulant. Even I could see that there was none. Her warm brown eyes looked out of her face blankly, just as blank as her mind had always been to me. I felt as if I were lost in the woods without a single ray of light to guide me…I felt blind right along with her.

"Bella, what can you tell me?" Carlisle prodded her, wanting her opinion. "What is it that you're having trouble seeing?"

"Seeing anything at all," Bella's voice offered in a monotone that made me tense as if for battle. "I can't see, Carlisle. It's all just darkness."

"Ah. Can you see swirls of color, Bella? Perhaps a random beam or dots of light?" Carlisle asked methodically. _Could be a blood clot behind the retina, _he thought to himself. _Possibly a side effect of having lain prone in that position for so long—it's been known to happen in long term illnesses. Or perhaps a side effect of one of the medications … some of them can increase the risks for a clot…_

"No," she answered. "Nothing."

From one small corner of my mind, the part that was struggling against outright panic, I listened to Jasper trying to restrain Alice. He was working hard in order to keep her from bursting into Bella's room, but the strength of her alarm was making it difficult for him to be gentle with her. As I'd suspected, my family had heard everything we'd said, and were reacting strongly.

"Easy, Alice!" Jasper murmured soothingly in his wife's right ear as he tried futilely to calm her down. "Let Carlisle do his job, Ally. Big scenes aren't going to help anything at the moment."

"That's why I always saw darkness!" Alice whispered through white, trembling lips as she suddenly stopped fighting and collapsed against limply Jasper's chest. She buried her face against him, as if to hide from the sights the world held. "In my visions, remember, Jasper? I would see darkness, nothing more! Oh, Jazz!"

Esme was stunned into immobility. Emmett's thoughts were stilted as he tried to understand how this could have happened, now, when everything was looking like it was going back to normal. _But…but she heard us laughing!_ was Emmett's dominant thought. Rosalie was systematically planning my death.

Carlisle proceeded to give Bella a thorough examination before he settled her back into bed against the pillows. I sat down beside her, holding her hand and stroking her hair—she was absolutely motionless except for slightly leaning into the motion of my hand. That comforted me a little. At least she seemed glad I was here for her in this trouble. "I can't do anything more until we get you to an MRI machine, Bella," Carlisle said smoothly, patting her shoulder. "There are several possible reasons for your condition; however, it is most likely this blindness is caused by a blood clot."

"Can you do anything about it?" Bella asked, her grip on my hand tightening. She appeared to be using all of her pitiful strength to hold onto me—her grasp was like the feathered touch of a hummingbird's wing against my stone fingers.

"If it is indeed a clot, surgery or medication might be able to dissolve it and restore your sight to you again," my father told her, running a hand through his hair. "Edward and I will take you to the hospital where I work tonight. We'll go when everything's quiet so that we won't be disturbed, and we'll give you an MRI there. I'll know more then. Why don't you get a little sleep for now, Bella? I'm going to go line up the test and make some other arrangements. Please excuse me."

With that, Carlisle headed out of the room to both call the hospital and talk to Esme. I hoped that he would help diffuse the situation outside before Alice broke free of Jasper or Rosalie exploded into the room, intent on ending my existence. Not that I blamed her very much at the moment—we both knew that this was my fault and no one else's. _Why had I ever left her?_

If Bella's sight really was gone, if anything happened to her, I would welcome Rosalie's assistance. But that wasn't the point at the moment.

When the room was quiet, I lay down again and cradled Bella close to my chest. Her body was still frozen in a posture of stress and fear, both emotions that were utterly absent from her face. It was unnerving. "Bella…" I whispered in her ear, trying to find some way to calm her down. "Bella, please relax. Everything will be fine, sweetheart, I promise. I won't let anything hurt you."

"Even me, Edward?" Bella's voice faltered as she revealed the depth of her panic. She closed her eyes tightly, escaping into a more familiar kind of darkness. "You won't even let _me_ hurt myself?"

What in the world was she thinking _now_? "Of course not, Bella! You're safe. We're together again, and that's all that matters. I love you, Bella, remember?"

"Yes," she sighed, finally relaxing enough to bury her face in my shoulder. I could hear her breathing in my scent as deeply as she could. I hoped that it would comfort her, as her scent comforted me by reminding me of the reality of her life. Her blood, tempting though it had once been to me, meant that she was still alive. Still human. "I remember. You love me. As I love you, Edward."

"Get some sleep, love. The rest of the family wants to see you, and we're going to be up late tonight figuring out what's wrong. You need to rest before all of that excitement." I softly began to hum her lullaby, and I felt the rest of the tension ease out of her. I smiled, relieved to a degree—at least my lullaby helped her now, even if it hadn't helped her before.

"I've missed that so much." Even with my vampire hearing, I nearly missed Bella's murmured words. "Edward?"

"Hmmm? What is it, love?"

"Promise that you won't leave me? Promise you'll stay with me, even in the dark? I don't want to be away from you again."

"I will not leave you. Never, ever again," I swore fervently, hoping that she knew that I _couldn't _leave her again. "Will you do something for me?" She nodded slowly against my shoulder. "Picture me in your mind, Bella. Picture me as clearly as you can. Hold on tightly to that image. I will never leave you behind to face the night alone again. I simply _can't_. I love you too much."

At my words, she sighed and slipped back into the void of night. I prayed that she would soon be returned to wakefulness…in sleep, she was too much like the Bella that I'd once feared would never return to me from the recesses of her own lost mind.

………………………………………………………………………………………………

When Bella next awoke, she kept her eyes firmly closed even though I was dying to know if there'd been some sort of miraculous healing that had taken place while she slept. Maybe I had dreamed it all happening before, even though I couldn't sleep. Maybe, just maybe, everything would be all right without any further angst required.

Even though my body had been still during Bella's sleep, my mind had been quite busy, running through everything that needed to be done and praying with every amount of my being that this latest trouble could yet be rectified. "Good evening, Bella," I greeted her as I heard her heart speed up a little with wakefulness, maybe because she felt me beside her. There was also the most wondrous feeling of hope leaping hotly in my quiet heart when I saw her smile at the sound of my voice. "How do you feel?"

"Pretty well," she answered automatically. Reassuring _me,_ once again. "My brain's not quite as fuzzy as it was before, which I guess is some improvement."

"Good!" I crowed, grateful for even that small development. _Open your eyes, Bella, please open your eyes…please see me…_ I silently begged. "As soon as you're ready for it, Alice will come and—"

Before I could even finish my statement, Alice was standing by the bed, grinning like the Cheshire Cat in _Alice and Wonderland._ She was nearly vibrating from both eagerness to see Bella again and tension because she was having trouble seeing what would happen next. Bella's darkness of sight didn't appear to affect only her, after all. "Well, speak of the devil, and the devil shall appear. Here's Alice now," I informed Bella, smiling against my will at the welcome sight of my favorite sister.

At this news, Bella's eyelids fluttered open…and then closed again as disappointment flooded her visage. "Alice? Alice, are you there?" she asked, reaching a hand out into the empty air pitifully. "I didn't hear you come in."

Alice's hand instantly shot out and met Bella's in the air. "It's really me, Bella," my sister's high voice sang. "Oh, I've missed you so much!" Alice raised Bella's hand and placed it on her face so that Bella could feel her features.

To my surprise, Bella's hand didn't trace my sister's face as she had mine. Instead, her graceful, frail fingers slowly crept up and felt along the top of Alice's head. She delicately stroked the short lengths of Alice's hair, which ended in the traditional spikes, so utterly unique to Alice. "Oh!" Bella cried, joy transforming her still deathly thin face into a faint shadow of what it had once been. "It is you, Alice! I can feel your hair! Besides, nobody has a voice like yours, with bells in it." Weakly, Bella raised her arms, asking quite clearly for one thing.

Alice obliged, and warmly hugged her human best friend. "It's been too long," she murmured, her honey eyes soft and, despite the situation, happy. Sometimes I forgot how much Alice loved my Bella, too.

"I know. I'm so glad you're back, Alice. I've thought about you a lot," Bella admitted.

This was the first time Bella had given me a clue about her perceptions of the past few months, except for mentioning darkness. I kept quiet—I knew she wouldn't tell me anything if she could help it—she would act out of a desire to keep from hurting me. So I nudged Alice on with my eyes, hoping she would understand what I was asking of her.

She did, thank goodness. "What do you mean by that, silly girl?" Alice asked lightly, not betraying the high level of interest we both held in Bella's answer.

Bella clung even tighter to Alice, as if she were trying to keep Alice for running away from her. "Mostly I tried not to think…but every once in a while, the thinking snuck up on me and got me. I don't remember much, but I remember wondering if you could see me. Could you, Alice?"

Alice swallowed hard and studiously avoided looking at my face—I didn't like to think of how much of my emotion might have been showing. It was hard enough to experience on my own without adding Alice's perceptions to the mix. "Sometimes I could," she replied. "Edward, Jasper and I came to get you as soon as we knew you weren't all right. I'm so sorry, Bella. We would have been there sooner, but we just didn't know." Because I had told Alice not to look, of course. Holy hell. Could I have possibly been any larger an ignoramus?

"No, no. Don't be sorry. Thank you for coming when you did," Bella said, her face showing pleasure. "I'm sorry to be such a bother to you all again, though. You're all going to get sick of me—Bella, the silly little lovesick human, back to bug the big, bad vampires." She cut me off when I started to say something. "I know, I know, Edward. No, you won't get sick of me, because you all love me, right?" Bella's face turned over in Alice's direction, as if she could still see her. "Isn't that what he was going to say?"

"You're dead on," Alice said with a grin. "Well done. They'll be calling _you_ the precognitive next. Now, then, how would you like a real bath and some fresh clothes?"

"Just so long as they're my ideas of clothes and not yours," Bella hedged cautiously. "I haven't been Rip Van Winkle long enough to forget that much about you."

Alice groaned in honest disappointment, consigning her dreams of silk and French lace begrudgingly. "Just when I could finally get away with it…that not seeing thing was going to be _so_ convenient."

I tensed—how could she possibly _joke_ about this?

But a chuckle from Bella stopped my protests cold. "Sorry to rain on your parade, Alice, but no dice. I'm not _that_ unaware." She buried her nose into my side for a moment. "You won't go far?" she asked me then, seeking reassurance.

"Not one inch farther than absolutely necessary, love," I promised her. "I have to make sure that Alice doesn't break her promise to you, after all. She _is_ a devious little squirt, you know."

"Good," Bella said, her hand going to my face to see if I was smiling. I altered my expression just in time. "I could use a protector."

My smile grew even wider, and became genuine to boot. "Then you have one. Whatever you need, I'll be."

Alice rolled her eyes at our exchange. "All right, enough with the cheese factor. My gosh, you two are like melted Velveeta. If you'll excuse us now, Edward," she said, pulling me up and pushing me toward the door, "we have quite an amount of girl time to catch up on. You, sir, are no longer welcome."

"You are so pushy," I complained, echoing something Bella had once told me.

"She learned from the best! You!" the object of my memory called after me.

I found myself laughing somewhat naturally at that, and then went to stand out in the hall. I could still hear their conversation perfectly, and it made me smile at intervals even while I picked up as many clues as to Bella's current emotional and physical state as possible. Alice teased and distracted Bella from her degenerated condition as she cleaned her up and put her in a brand new set of sweats. (Alice's thoughts were chagrined, but resigned.) From her responses, I could tell that while Bella was still a little confused and fuzzy from her long period of inactivity, she was quietly overjoyed at being restored to her life with us. She told Alice over and over again how good it was to "see" her, and how much she was looking forward to being reunited with the rest of my family.

My body tensed when I heard Bella's hand move, and then heard her say hesitantly, "Alice? What happened to my hair?"

The springs on the bed gave as Alice sat down beside Bella. "The doctors had to cut it, honey. Your long hair was just too hard to maintain when you were sick. I'm sorry, but I promise that it'll grow back. Rosalie and I have some Italian hair tonics that we've just been dying to give a try, and since it wouldn't work on vampires, you get to be our guinea pig. Do you mind?"

"Alice, this might be the one time when I wouldn't mind money being spent on me," Bella admitted, sounding still a little shaken but more soothed. "I'm not a snob, but my hair is worth it!"

"That it is!" Alice chuckled. "Don't worry, Bella. We'll have you back to normal as soon as possible."

"Normal? What's normal?" Bella asked. She had meant to sound scornful, but I heard an element of wistfulness in it. Shame flooded through me—I knew that I was the thing that was keeping her from normalcy.

"_Stop that!_" Jasper's thoughts ordered me sternly from the den. "_That's not what she means, Edward. Let her explain! No wonder you two never seem to know what the other is talking about—you always assume! _Listen _to her, Edward. You've got to listen for her to explain her thoughts, rather than you just automatically assuming that you know everything about the human mind._" Jasper was anxiously remembering his earlier one-sided conversation with Bella, and I remembered his words of caution, how he hoped that I would truly try to hear what Bella was saying for herself.

I sent Jasper feelings of apology and turned my attention back to the conversation at hand. "Normal is whatever normal is to you," Alice told Bella. I lifted an eyebrow for a moment—come to think of it, she was right. "So you decide what's normal for yourself. Don't let anybody else influence you, especially me. Who cares what I think is normal? Come to think of it, who would believe a psychic, highly fashionable, 1930s era _vampire_'s definition of normal, anyway?"

It was Bella's turn to chuckle now. "Nobody. You're right, I'm sorry. That was just me feeling sorry for myself. I'm better now."

Alice's thoughts were conflicted as she tried to find the best way to answer Bella. "You're allowed to feel sorry for yourself, Bella. Just don't stop on that for so long that you forget to move on, all right?"

"I won't, Alice, I promise. No more hiding away from the truth for me! Even if…" She swallowed hard, but her voice was the stronger for it. "Even if this blindness thing _can't_ be fixed, it'll be all right. I mean that, Alice. As long as I'm here with you, with my family, nothing else really matters all that much to me."

I'm sure Jasper wished he was in another state by now, just so he could escape the strength of my feelings. I could hear Bella all over again. "_It doesn't matter to me what you are. It's too late._" I still experienced the same sense of desperation to save her from these words, but I also felt a curious warmth around my dead heart. What wasn't this frail, human girl willing to face just for the sake of loving me? As I loved her, so did she love me. How amazing…

Esme's hand landed on my shoulder. "How is she?" my mother asked, her sympathy for me and her love for Bella prevalent in her eyes and thoughts.

"She seems to be much more coherent," I replied. "Her body is just still so frail, Esme…"

My mother smiled proudly. "What she lacks in physical strength, though, she makes up for in spirit. I truly believe that everything will be all right, Edward, no matter what the outcome is. Believe that with me, and stay."

I smiled half-heartedly at her. "I will, Mom, I promise. Even though it's painful, I'll stay. You taught me that, remember?"

Esme looked thoughtfully at the door that still separated her from Bella. "I suppose everything truly beautiful has an element of pain to it. Otherwise, how could we appreciate it? There is such a sense of victory in a beauty that still continues to be beautiful despite the trials and darkness that life sends its way."

"I hadn't thought of it that way," I admitted. "And since I can't imagine anything more beautiful than what is in there right now," I pointed at the door, "I suppose any amount of pain is worth the price. I still wish it could be my pain, not hers, though."

"It _is_ your pain, Edward. That's what a relationship is, son!" Esme chided, shaking her head in exasperation. "Don't you think I hurt for Carlisle when he is in pain over losing a patient? Don't you ache for me when I remember the little life I held in my hands and then lost? Not even you can keep pain from Bella, Edward, and you shouldn't want to. If it were all your pain, she would still feel it with you." She squeezed my shoulder for a moment. "Instead of placing the burden of grief all on one pair of shoulders, you should focus instead on how to help each other bear it. Find the beauty inside the pain, remember?"

I choked for a second. "I don't want to place my pain on Bella, Esme! That's not fair! And it's not right, not after what she's been through. I can't ask that of her."

Esme frowned disapprovingly at me. "Then that just goes to show that you still don't trust her to be your equal in all the ways that she can be, Edward. I should think that she would have earned that much from you by now."

Carlisle came down the hall just then, looking quizzically at Esme and me. Neither of us volunteered any information, though I imagined that they would be having a parental consultation about me later. Joy—I could hardly wait to hear those thoughts.

"I've made all the arrangements," Carlisle told me. "Everything is in readiness. If you don't mind, I'd like to take Alice with us. She can be helpful for watching out for trouble as well as helping to keep Bella occupied and calm while you and I are operating the machinery. Would that be all right with you?"

"Of course," I said automatically. "Besides, Alice would never forgive us if we left her behind. Knowing her, she'll try and drag Bella into the hospital gift shop to go shopping." I grinned, waiting for Alice's reaction to that.

She didn't disappoint. Her voice floated through the thin walls; we had no doubt both been guilty of eavesdropping today. "Edward Cullen! You know very well I would never take her shopping in a _gift shop_," she said, making it sound like the gift shop was on the same level as gasp! Wal-mart! Horror of horrors! "I was thinking more along the lines of making a stop at the outlet mall. They don't have much, of course, but they at _least _have an Ann Taylor and a Banana Republic…."

"No way, Jose!" I heard Bella say, her voice horrorstruck and humorous at the same time. "We are _not_ making me into Hospital Barbie, Alice!"

"It would never work anyway," Alice shot back. "You don't have the hair for it. We'd have to grab Rosalie for that part."

"I heard that, Alice, and comparing me to a plastic twit is _not_ the way to butter me up!" Rosalie hissed from a bedroom upstairs.

Carlisle, Esme and I exchanged looks, and grinned at the same time. This could take a while, but since it was highly amusing, that was fine with us.

"Not to mention the fact that Rosalie is the closest to having Barbie's anatomical make-up," Alice continued to muse, unperturbed by Rosalie's interruption. "Did you know that it would be physically impossible for Barbie to walk, were she real? Her, ahem, feminine assets and insanely small waist would make her fall over."

"Not to mention the fact that you'd have to walk around on your tiptoes all your life," Bella added fairly. I could just picture the impish twinkle in her chocolate eyes. "You'd be a perpetual twinkle toes."

Alice shuddered. "Perish the thought. You could never wear ballet flats!"

Carlisle rolled his eyes, deciding enough was enough. "And on that note…" He knocked on the door again, and the three of us entered the room, Esme fervently hoping that neither of us would try to stop her from following us in. I don't think either Carlisle or I could have ignored that insanely longing look in her butterscotch eyes, though, even if we'd wanted to. Those eyes of Esme's could melt titanium—not even us stern, vampire men could stand up against it for very long.

I went immediately to Bella's side, and she smiled gently. "I heard you," she exulted, her head turning in my direction.

"And this is cause for rejoicing?" I questioned as I sat beside her and put my face against her cheek.

She held my hand there with her own and replied, "Yes. I usually couldn't hear you guys when you were around. You were like ghosts. I had the knock to warn me this time, but I think," she cocked her head to the side a little as she considered carefully, "two or three people came in with you? I heard at least two other sets of feet."

"Well done!" I congratulated, ignoring the chagrin that she was developing these senses for this particular situation. "Who do you think was behind me?"

"Hmm….my guesses are Carlisle and…and Esme?" she said doubtfully.

Esme couldn't stand it anymore and zipped over to the other side of Bella's side. "You were right, dear. It's Esme."

Bella's face transformed again. She didn't say anything. She didn't have to. We could all see her joy as she held her arms out, wanting to feel Esme's motherly embrace. Esme obliged, and her thoughts were tender and at peace. _"It feels so good to have my daughter like this again,_" she thought, her mind weeping in the strength of her emotion. "_But my goodness, she's frail…just like the baby so long ago…_" She kissed the top of Bella's head as she held her, and a single tear trickled down Bella's wasted cheek.

Loathe though he was to interrupt the moment, Carlisle said, "Bella, it's time to go. Alice, Edward and I are going to take you now to the hospital for the testing. Do you feel up for it?"

"Of course," Bella said, drawing reluctantly away from Esme. "Whatever you need me to do, I'll do."

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. This was about her needs, not ours.

"The let's go get this stupid hospital stuff out of the way. You've some more happy reunions in your future," Alice chirped, "not to mention good times, and being on _General Hospital_ is not one of them!"

"Let's hope not," Bella laughed. "I only have room for _one_ hot doctor in my life," she said, pointing her chin in Carlisle's direction. We were all still laughing at that (especially Emmett) as I picked her up and headed for the garage.

………………………………………………………………………………………………

A/N: Go on. Push the button. You know you want to. Your need is undeniable! MUAHAHAHAHA!

Oh, and btw – if you liked Twilight (which I assumed you did, since you're reading this now) checked out Claudia Gray's "Evernight" series. I think they're even better. No fooling. And since I've given you that marvelous tip, I now expect you to review!


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